


Good Samaritan

by trishabooms



Series: Good Samaritan [1]
Category: Bourne Trilogy (Movies)
Genre: Good Samaritan, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-07-28
Updated: 2007-07-09
Packaged: 2017-10-18 16:06:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 19
Words: 60,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/190652
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trishabooms/pseuds/trishabooms
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Follow on from 'The Bourne Supremacy'</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

It was cold, New York in the winter, much colder than winters at home. David gave a small smile at the thought; even though he’d lived in the United States for over forty years now, he still thought of Wales as home. And yet, he had no desire to return there. Why was that he wondered? It probably just proved what a sentimental old fool he’d become.

He slipped suddenly, almost losing his footing on a patch of sheet ice. He righted himself carefully, heart racing a little as he clung for dear life to the side of an overflowing dumpster. It was treacherous walking in these alleys and back streets. Few of them were cleared of ice and snow, and the sun couldn’t penetrate these narrow passages enough during the day to make a difference. Despite them being less than twenty yards away from the bustling main streets of Manhattan it was like another world. It didn’t look like this one had been cleared of garbage for quite a while either. All the dumpsters looked to be full, and they stank, even on a cold night like this one. Not a good thing when you considered the number of trendy bars and very expensive restaurants these rear kitchen exits belonged to. There had to be vermin…

Not his problem.

He released his grip on the steaming dumpster, checking the soft brown leather of his gloves for detritus before carefully picking up the two large holdalls he’d been carrying. Then, cautiousley, he made his way down the alley, concentrating on where he was walking, instead of musing on thoughts of where he belonged. That could wait until he was back in his apartment, warm and showered, with a brandy to hand to banish the last of the chill from his bones. For now he had work to do.

  
Miriam had acquired a plastic tiara, a children’s fancy dress item by the looks of it, that had snapped somewhere near the middle, been repaired, and was attached to her green bobble hat by what looked like used packing tape. The tape was probably ripped from the collection of boxes that she’d shaped into her night's shelter.

David crouched down in front of her, his knees protesting slightly at the strain, and tipped his hat to her.

“Hello there Miriam,” he smiled. “I like your tiara.”

The smile she gave him in return showed more gaps than teeth, and she reached into her little shelter, pulling out a stick with a glittery silver star at the end. She narrowed her eyes in a look of concentration and tapped him on the shoulder with what, he then realised, was a wand.

“I’m hoping you’ve turned me into a virile young prince,” he told her, “I don’t want to wake up tomorrow to find my skin green and my feet webbed.”

She laughed, not making a sound.

He’d never known her to speak, but her shoulders shook with mirth, and the rheumy grey eyes crinkled at the corners. He wondered what she’d looked like when she was young, before the ravages of street life had taken their toll on her. It was almost impossible to imagine now, except for her eyes... She had the kindest eyes.

“It’s a cold night Miriam,” he told her, digging into the heaviest of his bags, “I thought you might be able to use an extra blanket.” He pulled one out and handed it over, together with a packet of sandwiches from the other bag.

When he’d first started doing this he’d misguidedly handed out money, but he’d soon discovered his error. Money didn’t go on a hot drink, or a bed for the night, it went on alcohol and drugs, or it was taken from the weak by the strong. It was a hard learned lesson the night it was taken from him. A night he would never forget. He had been left beaten and bloody in a dark, wet alley until he was found by a young policewoman.

Officer Diane Jolly, over coffee and a very nice slice of cheesecake a day or two later, had put him right over a few things. She’d suggested far more practical ways for him to help the homeless than handing out money, and she had managed to do it without making him feel too much of an idiotic old fool.

These days they met for cheesecake every Wednesday, her treat, and had dinner once a month, his treat, though she refused to go anywhere she deemed ‘too fancy’. If it wasn’t for the fact that she refused to call him David, insisting instead on calling him "Prof", Officer Jolly would be well on her way to being the daughter that he’d never known he wanted. Instead she was his _buddy_ , which he supposed would have to do.

David exhausted his supply of blankets fairly quickly and the packs of sandwiches not long after. He wished that he were able to carry more, do more for these people, but realistically he knew he couldn’t. He didn’t have the resources to do more, and frankly he didn’t have the energy. As much as he hated to admit it, he was no spring chicken these days.

He made his way back, the cold already biting at his bones. The weatherman had warned of a severe temperature drop in the early hours of the morning and you could feel it on the way. The likelihood of some of tonight’s unfortunates never seeing the dawn disturbed him, despite knowing it wasn’t something he could prevent.

Although he was only a few blocks away from his apartment building David always used his car on these delivery runs. It meant he didn’t have to carry his heavy bags too far before he’d even started, and on cold nights like this the heater was always welcome, even if it did make him feel incredibly guilty at times.

As he was about to round the corner that led him away from the back streets and alleys, and was just a stones throw away from where his car was parked, he heard the sounds of a scuffle from nearby. There were shouts, angry raised voices that spoke a language he didn’t understand, but was fairly certain had to be Eastern European.

He followed the sounds of the commotion towards a group of smartly dressed and somewhat menacing looking men. They were circling another man, homeless judging by the state of him. They were pushing him from one to the other, sneering, clearly angry, their slaps and punches becoming increasingly more violent as the mob mentality took over.

David heard one of the attackers say something that sounded like “F.S.B not so fucking tough!” as he landed a hard kick to the small of his victim's back, that sent the man sprawling into the arms of one of the others. That man grabbed handfuls of his victim’s long, unkempt, dark hair and slammed his head down onto a waiting knee, forcing a cry of pain from the previously silent man. He was knocked to the floor and tried desperately to protect himself as the group moved in, raining merciless kicks down on him.

“Stop that! Leave that man alone!” David shouted, as he hurried towards them.

Diane Jolly’s regular admonishments to stay out of this kind of situation were reduced to a nagging voice in the back of his mind saying, _‘You’re gonna get yourself killed you old fool!’_

To his surprise the men stopped and turned to look at him. One of them addressed him in what he was certain this time was Russian. That it was a threat that he uttered was clear from the expression on his face, even if David didn’t understand the language. Then he turned back to the downed man and aimed a kick at his head.

“Get away from him and get out of here!” David tried again. “I’ve called the police on the lot of you!” he lied.

The notion that these men could very easily turn around and also attack _him_ occurred to David almost as soon as the words left his mouth, but to his relief they hesitated. One of them turned and started moving away.

“Know your place, you piece of shit!” another called out in heavily accented English, before letting loose a last, half-hearted kick to the man’s abdomen. The remainder of the group spat at the fallen man, and for some reason that incensed David even more than the beating.

As they all finally turned and sprinted away, he gave no more thought to them, rushing over to their motionless victim instead, dropping awkwardly to his knees so that he could assess the extent of his injuries. His car wasn’t far away, and he had left his cell phone inside it, he’d contact the paramedics from there once he…

The man groaned in pain.

“It’s alright, they’re gone,” David assured him, “You’re safe now.” The young man was truly filthy, and the stink coming off him made David want to gag.

A stream of Russian slipped from the man’s lips and although David didn’t understand a word, the pain, and surprisingly the anger, was more than evident. He looked to see if those things were reflected in the man’s face but most of his features were hidden behind an unkempt mass of matted, long, dark hair.

“Do you speak English?” David asked him gently, and to his relief he received a nod of reply.

“Thank heavens. You have nothing to be afraid of I’m not going to hurt you. My name is David Williams, I’m a doctor. I just want to take a quick look at you and we’ll send for an ambulance, you’re going to be…”

 _“Niet!”_ The man tried to move away from him, though the movement clearly caused him pain. “No, not ambulance, I don’t need… d-don’t want…”

He slowly began to pull himself to his knees, his body shaking with the effort. “Just… Stay away from me,” he told David in heavily accented English. He was swaying, even on his knees, but he staggered awkwardly to his feet.

The fact that David caught him as his legs gave way was nothing short of a miracle, but catch him he did, supporting him until the man managed to get his feet beneath him once more.

“You need help, you can’t stay here,” David told the shadowed face. “Will you let me help you?”

“Why?”

It seemed the strangest thing to ask.

“Because you need it.”

“Good S-Samaritan,” there was a hint of amusement in the pained voice.

“If you like. Do you want some help?”

“No hospital? Just you?”

Reluctantly David was forced to agree. It was an issue he couldn’t force, and he wouldn’t leave the man here, even though he was severely limited in what he could do for him. He understood the fear the majority of the homeless had for hospitals, they lived this way for a reason. So many of them were running away from something, many had severe mental health problems coupled with alcohol or drug dependency. As long as they weren’t a nuisance they were allowed to slip under the radar by the authorities, and were not the focus of individual and unwelcome attention.

Knowing all of this, ignoring the nagging voice that was screaming at the stupid risk he was taking, David more or less supported the limping, injured man as he guided him on a slow and exhausting walk to the car. There was a moment, just a moment, where the effete snob in David cringed at the thought of this stinking, wet, filthy individual soiling the pearl grey leather interior of his beloved Jaguar, guiltily wondering if he would ever be able to get the smell out. The caring man took over however, and shook his head in disgust as he helped the injured man into the passenger seat.

David felt sure that his passenger would pass out during the drive to his apartment. He would have liked to turn the car around and take him straight to the hospital, where he would be sure of getting the help he needed, but he was fairly certain that the man suspected that might be his intention and was therefore hanging onto consciousness with what David already recognised as a considerable force of will.

They pulled into the basement car park of his apartment building and, as he helped his charge out of the car, David found himself grateful for the proximity of his particular slot to the elevator.

The man leaned against the side of the Jaguar for support and was illuminated by the lights in the underground garage. David saw for the first time just how young the man was, early thirties at a guess. He was tall too, over six feet, and he was able to catch a glimpse of the battered and bloody face beneath the hair. His gaze was met by one eye swollen almost shut, the other dark and fighting to focus on him.

“I should go,” the accented voice was soft, but surprisingly deep.

“I thought we had a deal, I thought you had agreed to let me help you,” David reminded him gently.

“No one can help me. You don’t know…”

He broke off, frowning heavily, and David noticed a rivulet of blood move slowly down beside his right ear.

“I know we need to get you inside before you pass out on me.” He moved beside the young man to lend his support once again. “Almost there now, we just need to get into the elevator. I have the fourth floor.”

David didn’t get any kind of reaction so he tried again. “Come on, come up to the apartment and let me see if I can help. At the very least it’s warm up there.”

“You… You should not invite strangers into your home.”

David smiled, finding the warning strange and oddly rather endearing. “I know, but just this once I’m willing to take the risk. Are you coming?”

His words didn’t seem to cheer the young man, but he gave a slight nod, moving away from the car and allowing David to support him as they made their way to the elevator.

~~~~~~~~


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Follow on from 'The Bourne Supremacy'

Chapter 2

  
David always left the lights on in the apartment, it made him feel like he was coming home to something, made the emptiness somehow a little more bearable.

He helped the young man as far as the bathroom door, opening it and turning on the lights.

“The bathroom is through here. Do you think you can support yourself whilst I get a few things, or do you want me to come and help you?”

“I- I can do it.”

David nodded. “I’ll be back in just a moment.”

The bathroom door was slightly ajar when David returned and he was almost certain that the homeless man would be gone, so he was surprised to find him still there.

He looked up at David as he entered the room. “I’m too tired to leave,” the soft voice told him, as though reading his thoughts. He was sitting on the closed lid of the toilet and David guessed that the journey here had sapped the last of his strength.

David gave him a nod as he put his medical bag and a few other things down on the counter top. He had slipped on an old kitchen apron over his clothes, and wore surgical gloves. He opened a plastic garbage sack and placed it on the floor. “For me to help you I need to see how badly you’re injured,” he explained, “And for me to do that you’ll need to undress, do you understand?”

He got a nod, but the young man’s gaze had become fixed on the floor.

“If we put your clothes into the plastic sack I can wash them for you.”

The floor got itself another nod but then the man spoke, his heavily accented voice little more than a whisper. “I-I have… things.”

“Things?”

His hand searched shakily for the pocket of the filthy army surplus parka he was wearing, and David took his meaning.

“I’ll empty the pockets carefully, I promise you, before I wash anything. And I’ll keep safe anything I find.”

The hand dropped down again, and this time the eyes came up slowly to meet his before he got his nod.

David all but undressed the young man, who remained seated on the closed lid of the toilet. He wore layers of ill fitting clothing, but they were barely adequate to keep him warm. Most of the items were so threadbare that David doubted they’d survive the wash. Almost all the clothes were wet from the snow and he was shivering with cold, even in David’s more than comfortably warm bathroom.

What bothered David even more was the condition of the man. Even for a vagrant he must have been living in grim circumstances. It was clear that he’d lost a great deal of body weight. He remained large framed and broad shouldered, but he was on his way to being distressingly thin.

The beating he’d taken today showed up an angry red that was already beginning to turn into dark, purple bruising, but the man had older bruises in a rainbow of shades, all over his body, and there were wounds that ranged from minor yet painful looking abrasions to some more nasty looking injuries that were in various stages of healing. There were scars too; one on his upper arm was clearly a surgical scar that David estimated to be less than a year old.

“Would you object to taking a bath?” David asked him. “It will help warm you through, ease the pain a little, and I can clean up some of these cuts and bruises.”

He was expecting an absolute no, he knew from hostels he had visited how hard it could be for the workers in those places to talk many of their itinerant clientele into taking baths and showers. So he was surprised to see that the young man was nodding even before he got all the words out.

“I w-would like to take a bath,” he said slowly.

“Let me go and run it for you.”

David wrapped an old bath sheet around the shivering younger man before crossing to the bath tub and beginning to fill it. Once the taps were running he retrieved a thermometer from his medical bag and turned his attention back to his patient who had pulled the towel tight around him, like a blanket.

“Can I take your temperature?”

The eye that wasn’t cut and almost swollen closed, looked up at him from beneath the dirty matted hair and David got a _real_ look at the young man’s face as he slipped the thermometer beneath his tongue. That undamaged eye was large and quite beautiful, not dark brown as he’d thought but closer to hazel, with long dark lashes and dramatic brows. The flesh beneath was tinged blue, clearly showing the extent of his exhaustion, and possibly more than that; he had the pallor, gaunt face, and slightly sunken eyes of someone who was ill, or recovering from an illness. You couldn’t hide the beauty of that face though, not beneath a plethora of cuts and bruises, or the heavy beard and an acre of grime.

David was distracted by the sight of yet another line of blood streaking a path through the dirt, down beside his ear and into his beard, to stain the towel covering his shoulder.

~~~~~~~~~~

The old man helped him lower himself into the bathtub; otherwise he would probably have fallen in. The water felt so hot against the ice of his skin that it wrung a gasp from him, but he laid back anyway, gratefully immersing everything but his head. The parts of him that didn’t ache began to sting on contact with the water, but he was past caring. It felt so blessedly warm.

He could lie here forever in this heat… Perhaps if the old man went away he could find the courage to simply let his head slip under the water and bring things to an end. He was tired, so very tired. He needed to rest, get his strength back and then move on, but what he needed to do and what he seemed capable of doing appeared worlds apart just now.

Those bastards tonight had heard rumours that he had been F.S. B; had sought him out so they could prove how tough they were. There should not have been any rumours. His existence should not be reduced to this. If he could rest then perhaps the headaches would go, perhaps he’d be able to pull together the gaps in his memory…

So many gaps…

He realised he’d been rubbing at his head near the site of the headaches, and moved his hand away, surprised when he opened his eyes to find blood on his fingertips.

“You seem to have a head wound that’s bleeding quite a bit,” his Samaritan rescuer told him. He had forgotten the man was standing beside the bath. “Why don’t I wash your hair and take a look at it?”

He gazed up at the man, who seemed to be somewhere in his sixties. He could sense no threat from him; see nothing to be wary of behind the concerned blue eyes. Perhaps the man was genuine, or more likely expected payment in kind.

He had done worse… much worse.

He gave the waiting man a nod.

~~~~~~~~

“I don’t have very much that will fit you…” David told his reluctant guest, coming back into the bathroom with a pair of blue boxers and an old grey T-shirt. “These should be fine to sleep in though.”

He handed them over to the towel-wrapped young man. “The boxers are new, a gift from my wife’s sister, who clearly has me confused with a much slimmer man,” he patted his paunch and laughed.

He didn’t get a laugh back, didn’t actually expect any reply at all, but to his surprise he got a response. “Where is your wife?”

David froze for a moment, and then shook his head, pulling himself together. “She died, almost two years ago now. Bowel cancer,” he added, still oddly uncomfortable with saying the words.

There was no reaction as the man began to slip on the clothes David had handed him.

“I have a varied collection of equipment from the last time I offered my medical skills to the hostel down town. I thought I might have steri-strips for the head wound, though they wouldn’t have been suitable for the cut near your eye, but I’m afraid I don’t. Oddly enough I do have sutures, but no lidocaine, I’m sorry.”

“It-it does not matter,” the soft, accented voice told him.

David nodded, “If you’re sure, I really have no desire to add to what you’ve already been through today, but they need stitching. There’s a bed made up in the spare room, and there’s an angle lamp in there that I can use. The better the light the…”

He stopped talking when he saw that the young man’s energy had run out whilst he was putting on the boxers. He went over and helped him to slip the T-shirt over his battered torso. “A last effort to the bedroom and then you can lie down, get some rest. Are you up to it, if I help you?”

“I… _Da_ … Yes.”

It was a stumbling walk to the bedroom, and David suspected his guest had called up his last reserves of strength to make it. His limp had become so pronounced that he was barely taking any weight on his right leg at all.

David hadn’t wanted to take too many liberties when he was washing the man, but the problem seemed to be with his right ankle. Orthopaedics weren’t David’s field. If the opportunity presented itself he would try and talk the young man into letting someone take a look at it. Perhaps Arthur Kramer, he was very good.

David helped the man to lie back on the bed, disturbed at seeing the pain etched on his face and hearing the groan of discomfort that escaped him. Even back at the alley he’d done all he could to mask what he was feeling.

“Almost done,” David quietly reassured him, unfolding the comforter over him.

The scalp wound wasn’t too severe but like all head wounds it bled a lot. David cut away some of the hair around the wound then flushed it as clean as possible with antiseptic solution before stitching it. It took six, each one borne in total silence and without so much as a flinch.

“That should be fine,” David told him when he’d finished. “I noticed the scar you already have nearby. It’s surgical isn’t it?”

His patient frowned a little, the open hazel eye boring into him, but surprisingly he answered. “An auto accident.”

“Was it a skull fracture?”

 _“Da.”_

“Is that when you injured your arm, I noticed that has a surgical scar too?”

“They told me it was trapped. I don’t remember that, just… Bits and pieces are all I remember.”

David turned his attention to the other cut, beside the eye that was swollen closed. “I fear these may cause you a little more discomfort than the scalp wound, I’m sorry. They need to be a little more delicate if we’re to avoid a nasty scar,” he explained as he set to work.

“How did you injure your ankle?” he asked, by way of a distraction.

“I-I don’t… In the accident maybe?”

David frowned as he concentrated, “You don’t remember?”

The young man shifted slightly. “You ask too many questions.”

“I thought that talking might distract you a little. This can’t be very pleasant. Plus my own professional curiosity compels me to ask.”

David began another stitch. “You could turn the tables, ask me questions.”

“What is it that you want?” he was asked, after a lengthy silence.

David didn’t understand, “Want?”

“From me. Why are you helping me?”

“Because you need it,” he frowned. “I’m not looking for payment, don’t let that worry you, please. At some point in our lives we all need help for some reason or other, so you do what you can.”

“You have belief then, religion?”

“Anyone who can watch their wife, or any loved one, go through what mine did and keep their faith is a far better person than I am I’m afraid.”

The image of Margaret in her final weeks insinuated itself into David’s mind, forcing him to silence, to concentrate on what he was doing, distract himself. It took a few moments before he could find his voice again and be assured he could keep it steady.

“Almost finished, this is the last one. The stitches will need to come out in five days, until then you need to keep them clean and dry so they don’t get infected,” he explained as he cut the final thread and sat back to examine his handiwork, happy with the neat job. “One more thing and then I’ll leave you in peace to get some sleep.”

“What more do you do?” The soft voice with it’s more pronounced accent and slightly confused English were clear indications of his patient’s exhaustion.

“Anti-tetanus shot, nothing to worry about.” David doubted he heard a word, let alone felt the shot, before he drifted into sleep.

As he cleaned up the room as he felt his own tiredness sweep over him. He took a final look at the young man before turning off the light and closing the bedroom door, wondering, not for the first time this evening, if he’d done a good thing or a momentously stupid one in bringing him here.

~~~~~~


	3. The Good Samaritan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Follow on from 'The Bourne Supremacy'

**Chapter 3**

 **CIA Headquarters, Langley, Virginia**

Pamela Landy sat outside CIA Director Martin Marshall’s office and fought the urge to fidget like a schoolgirl. It had been a long time since she had last been summoned to these offices, and the last occasion had been far from pleasant. She had suffered a blistering dressing down from the director in front of her fellow task force chiefs. Since then, although she’d retained her position; her pay scale; and even her level five security clearance, she’d virtually been discarded; relegated to the ranks of glorified paper pusher.

She knew the reasoning behind such treatment of course, it was the firm’s way of suggesting she resign, but she refused to give them the satisfaction, she had done nothing wrong, had simply done her job.

What galled her most was that no one had a bad word to say about Ward Abbott. The man had been lining his pockets for years, had ordered the execution of Alexander Conklin and had personally murdered Danny Zorn, before blowing his own brains across a Berlin hotel room. Yet they talked about the man like he was a hero, and looked at her as though it had been her finger, not his, on the trigger that night. Admittedly the exact details of what had taken place on the mission remained classified, but that didn’t stop the old boy network from circling the wagons, didn’t make the looks and the finger pointing any easier to bear, even if they did refer to her as the ice-queen.

“Ms Landy,” the secretary’s voice cut into her thoughts, “you can go in now.”

  
“Pam, come on in, take a seat,” she wasn’t sure what she’d been expecting, but it wasn’t this warm, friendly greeting from the Director. “Sorry to keep you waiting out there, I had to take a couple of phone calls.”

She sat down at the other side of Marshall’s intimidatingly large desk and gave a nod to the young man already seated in the chair beside hers.

“Have you met Teddy Lawrence, Pam?” Marshall asked her.

“We’ve never been officially introduced, no.”

Young, fast-tracked, golden boys seldom moved in the same circles as desk bound paper pushers, as they were all well aware, but she kept up the pretence and flashed what she hoped was a fairly warm smile.

Lawrence beamed at her and thrust out his hand. “A long awaited pleasure.”

He was an all-American blue eyed boy, a Harvard graduate with just a hint of Iowa farm boy beneath the expensive manicure. A few more years, a little less hair, and he’d be running for office.

“We have something of a situation here Pam, Teddy is going to bring us up to speed on the details and I’d appreciate your input.”

Marty sounded sincere and it threw her a little. “Of course.” Unable to hide her curiosity she turned her attention onto Teddy Lawrence.

He handed her a photograph before drawing her attention to the interactive white board behind them, where the same image was displayed.

“This is a rare photograph of one Kirill Trediakovsky, a very well trained, extremely effective operative of the Russian FSB. He was also in the pay of Russian Pecos Oil billionaire Yuri Gretkov, who as you know is currently in prison in Moscow, awaiting trial on various charges, including murder, fraud, and corruption. Trediakovsky was undoubtedly Gretkov’s assassin. He was trained by Nikolai Uspensky, a close personal friend of Gretkov’s since their days in the KGB.

“Trediakovsky’s last contract for Gretkov was to take out Jason Bourne. He made two attempts; the first took place in Goa, India, and resulted in the death of Marie Helena Kreutz, Bourne’s lover. The second attempt left Trediakovsky himself seriously injured after a car chase through the streets of Moscow. Jason Bourne escaped the encounter and has slipped off the radar once more.”

Pamela stared hard at the picture of the Russian before turning to put a question to Martin Marshall. “Reading between the lines, am I to assume that this Kirill Trediakovsky is the man who took out both my operative and the seller in Berlin when we were attempting to recover the Neski files?”

“Almost certainly,” Marshall confirmed. “I think it safe to assume that the plan was Ward Abbott’s, and that Gretkov supplied the expertise; someone eminently capable of both doing the job and putting Bourne in the frame.”

She raised an eyebrow, “I see.”

“Trediakovsky wasn’t immediately linked to Gretkov,” Lawrence continued. “After the car crash he underwent emergency surgery. During recovery an attempt was made on his life, presumably by Gretkov’s people in an attempt to prevent him from testifying. Despite debilitating injuries, if the hospital staff are to be believed, Trediakovsky managed to escape, and we suspect he called in enough favours to get him out of the country within twenty four hours, then he disappeared.”

“I take it he’s been traced?”

Lawrence looked slightly less sure of himself. “We believe he’s currently in the US, New York to be precise, wherein lies the problem. The Russian police want him back as a key witness in the Gretkov trial…”

“And Gretkov needs to go down.” Pamela turned her searching gaze on Martin Marshall, “We are in agreement on that, aren’t we?”

“Absolutely,” Martin told her, “however Kirill Trediakovsky presents us with a very unique set of problems. He was a key FSB operative, the Russian authorities are concerned that, should he be brought to trial he would use certain information to save his own ass, information that, should it be disclosed, would not only present serious problems for the Russians, but would not bode well for us either.”

“How serious?” she asked him.

“Bottom line here we’re talking grievous damage to our international reputation, and the certain demise of our current administration. Cards on the table Pam, this is a problem that needs to go away, very quickly and very quietly, for all our sakes. We have made certain assurances to our Russian counterparts that we will be the ones to deal with this. To that end, Teddy has come up with what I think is the right solution…”

“What about Gretkov,” she pushed. She didn’t want that bastard to get off scot-free.

“The Russians have made certain assurances to us, in return.”

She nodded her understanding; Gretkov would die without ever coming to trial.

“Teddy, do you want to continue?”

Lawrence nodded. “In theory tracking down Trediakovsky should be simple, if the intel’ we possess proves to be accurate. We don’t believe he’s ever fully recovered from the injuries inflicted on him during his encounter with Jason Bourne. We believe that either, because of his physical condition at the time, he was unable to access the funds available to him, or that the escape from Russia, and the amount of time he was forced to spend in hiding whilst recovering, may well have cost him every penny he had. Either scenario ties in with the rumours we’re hearing from New York.”

“He’s surviving in diminished circumstances?” Marshal asked the younger man.

“If the information we have is correct then he’s sleeping rough and has been for some time. It’s made him impossible to track down.”

Pamela shook her head. “Have you seen the weather reports from there over the last week, the temperatures are set to plummet to record levels over the next couple of days. If he’s sleeping rough in New York right now then it’s certainly not by design, and I would describe his circumstances as considerably more than diminished,” she pointed out. “Do we have any solid intelligence on this or is it speculation?”

“What we have is sketchy,” Lawrence admitted, “it’s coming from the Russians, but to be honest we’ve not even been able to confirm that Trediakovsky is in the US.”

Pamela let out a snort of disbelieving laughter, “So you’re nowhere with this?”

“Were in a bad situation here,” Marty told her. “It may well be that the New York lead is a wild goose chase, but the source is impressive. However, Teddy has made a proposal which I think has a great deal of merit.” He turned to the younger man who continued.

“This agency is still looking for Jason Bourne. He is by definition still a wanted man, though there is no ongoing operation to trace his whereabouts. Bourne has made it clear that all he wants is to be left alone, therefore I propose that we make him an offer: He deals with our Kirill problem and in return we forget all about him. The man has enough reasons of his own to want Trediakovsky dead so I’m thinking there are no negatives for Bourne in this deal.”

“So why didn’t he kill him?” Pamela asked.

Lawrence frowned, “I don’t understand.”

“Kirill Trediakovsky survived his last encounter with Jason Bourne. One thing I learned through my dealings with the man is that he doesn’t leave lose ends, so why didn’t he kill the Russian?”

Lawrence shook his head. “Perhaps he thought he did, the man was badly injured.”

“That’s not the kind of mistake he would make. If he’s alive it’s because Bourne left him that way.”

“I take your point Pam,” the Director told her, “but I doubt its relevance. The deal for Bourne is that he tracks down and kills the Russian, something he is eminently qualified to do, and in return we mark our files on him closed, end of story.”

Pam arched an eyebrow, sceptical to say the least. “Just like that?”

“Just like that.” Marshall looked over at Lawrence, “Could you give Pam and I a moment Teddy?”

“Certainly.” The younger man quickly got to his feet and made his way out to the secretary’s office, closing the door behind him.

Martin steepled his hands in front of pursed lips and stared at Pam before letting out a slow sigh. “I’m taking a chance here Pam and I can’t say I’m happy about it. Ward Abbott, Treadstone, Jason Bourne, those names leave a particularly nasty taste and I want it gone, not regurgitated over and over. The whole sorry mess was badly handled…”

“By me?”

“In my opinion, yes. If I had a choice you would have no involvement in this situation, but you are our only credible link to Bourne. I need you to be a team player this time around, no rash decisions, and no holding back information. Contact Bourne, give him our proposal and talk him into accepting it. Then, perhaps, we can see about getting your career back on track. Mess up and your remaining time with this agency will be spent in the mail room, do I make myself clear?”

“Crystal!” she nodded, fighting the urge to come back at him.

“You liaise with Bourne, you act as our mouthpiece, but your involvement begins and ends there, Lawrence is in charge of the task force on this one, understood?”

“Yes.”

“Work with him, get to Bourne, and do it quickly.” He picked up his pen and turned his attention to a sheath of papers on his desk, effectively dismissing her. “Ask Teddy to come back in as you leave would you?”

~~~~~~~~  



	4. The Good Samaritan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Follow on from 'The Bourne Supremacy'

**Chapter 4**

 _He knew they were dreams, this barrage of images that were so vivid, and at the same time so confusing. They weren’t real… And yet…There was pain, how could there be pain in a dream?_

 _He looked up into the laughing face of the man whom he had come to learn could be either his god or his devil… He felt the iron grip of the hands that were restraining him, knew that he had to obey, not fight against whatever was going to happen._

 _And he tried, tried so hard to do what was expected of him, always tried but…_

“Niet…”

 _The restraining hands on his arm, felt so cold: as cold as the dark eyes that were laughing at him. Someone had once told him that there was no soul behind those eyes… He knew that there was little in the way of humanity._

“Niet…!”

 _He began to struggle against the cold hands, began to disobey the voice that was ordering him to submit; to accept; to be still._

“Niet!”

“It’s alright. There’s nothing to be afraid of… Just lie back, relax.”

The words were spoken in English, not Russian. The softly spoken voice was British and the cool grip on his arms insistent… but gentle. He opened his eyes to see a different face, from the one in his dreams, looking down on him, concern in the bright blue eyes. “You were having a bad dream,” the man told him, “You’re quite safe. It’s alright.”

It took him a moment to recognise the man, to vaguely remember where he was. “M-my Samaritan…”

“Usually I just go by the name David,” the man smiled. “Lie back down now, rest.”

He didn’t even realise he’d been trying to sit up. He lay back slowly against the pillows and the cool hands released him. It occurred to him that the man’s hands felt cold because he’d been outside. He was still wearing a coat.

“Where have you been?” _If he had gone to the authorities, the police…_ Kirill tried to think calmly, ignore the increasing feeling of panic that was rising up inside him, and listen to what the man had to say.

“I work at the hospital, teach there, part-time these days but I had to go in this morning. To be honest I thought you’d sleep through for much longer than this. How are you feeling?” Slowly warming fingers lifted his hand, resting over his pulse.

He couldn't think, wasn't sure what to do, and his head was starting to ache. “I-I need to go, to leave.”

“Go where, back out there onto the streets?” his Samaritan raised an eyebrow. “The forecast is for heavy snow today, which has already started, and tonight they expect the temperature to drop close to record levels. Do you really want to be out there on a day like today?”

“I…” He didn't know what he wanted.

He stared up at the ceiling. If he was honest he doubted he would make it to the door of the room without help. He couldn’t hold back a sigh of frustration.

“Accept my help, just for a couple of days,” his Samaritan insisted, “until you’re feeling better... I give you my word that I won’t involve the hospital, the police, the welfare authorities or anyone else.”

“Why? Why do you do this for me?” In his experience there was always a price to pay.

“Because…” His Samaritan paused a slight frown creasing his brow, and then went on, “It’s what people do. They help each other.”

He doubted anyone was that naive, but whatever the true reason he didn’t really have any choice, and they both knew it. “A day or two,” he conceded.

“Good!” The fingers that had taken his pulse gave his hand a gentle squeeze. “Why don’t we begin by you giving me a name? What do I call you?”

“Kirill.”

“I’m David, as I said. Now, what I propose next is that I go and hang up my coat, fetch my medical bag, and you allow me to examine you.”

“Do I have a choice?”

“Of course. I’d like to help, but only if you let me.”

Kirill turned his face away from the man, gazed at the large snowflakes that were drifting passed the window. He should not have allowed this man to help him. He should have been stronger than this, needed to be, but he was so tired and things…

Things were so confused…

“Would you like me to leave you alone to rest for a while?”

Kirill shook his head, still unable to look at the man, “Fetch your bag.”

The examination was slow and thorough, and at times more than a little uncomfortable, but the old man had an easy, soothing manner that Kirill found himself responding to. Surprisingly he didn’t ask him all that many questions and the ones that he did ask seemed to focus on the degree of pain he was in from his various injuries.

“I think you’ve had enough for today,” the old man told him eventually, covering him with the heavy quilt. “There’s a deli a couple of blocks away that makes the most delicious chicken broth. I picked some up on the way home from the hospital. Why don’t you rest whilst I go and heat some up for you?”

“I am not hungry.” He knew he ought to be. He had no idea how long it had been since he last ate anything.

“Perhaps not, but you do need to eat, even if it’s just a little…”

He nodded, closing his eyes while the man continued to talk, the voice fading as sleep began to overtake him.

~~~~~~~~

David had to wake the man, Kirill, when he returned with the broth. That wasn’t unexpected of course. He’d known even before examining him that the man was exhausted, he just hadn’t realised the extent of that exhaustion.

David adjusted the pillows so that the young man was sitting up a little more. The broth had been one of the few things that he could convince Margaret to eat when she was ill. The smell of it heating in the kitchen had brought back a flood of memories, fond but sad. They had shared long conversations, talks that had gone on for days in fact, as they planned vacations to long dreamt of destinations, trips they were going to take together once she was well, ignoring that terrible unvoiced truth between them that there was no chance of recovery.

God he missed her so!

“Just take what you can,” David told the young Russian as he fed him. “I know you’re not feeling hungry but you do need to eat to get your strength back.”

He got a nod of understanding, and it was clear to David that the young man did make an effort to eat, but even so he barely took half the small bowl of soup David had heated for him. He’d try again later.

He set the bowl aside and poured water from the carafe. “Kirill!”

The young man was already starting to doze, “Kirill, stay awake a little longer, listen to me.” The uninjured eye flickered open. “I need you to pay attention, just for a moment. Are you allergic to any kind of medication, that you know of?”

 _“Niet…_ No.”

“Well that’s something at least. I have a couple of tablets for you to take, an antibiotic and something for the pain.”

“I-I do not need…”

“Indulge me,” David urged him with a smile. “Take the tablets. Your body has enough to cope with right now; a little pain relief won’t do any harm.”

“As you wish,” Kirill conceded with a sigh, taking the pills. David held the glass for him while he drank and then lowered the pillows to make him more comfortable.

“I’ll leave you to rest now.”

~~~~~~~~~

 **Lefortovo Prison, Moscow.**

The indignity of being forced to shuffle along the ridiculous white and rose painted corridors of Lefortovo Prison in ankle manacles, his wrists cuffed to the chain fastened around his waist, was not lost on Yuri Gretkov. Nor was the fact that they had chosen Lefortovo, an FSB prison for enemies of the state, to incarcerate him whilst awaiting trial. They had paraded him like this to both his court appearances, no doubt to please the American observers who had been present to see the charges against him detailed.

It had been a farce, a circus performance with him as the main attraction.

They were taking him to one of the interrogation rooms. He knew the route well enough, though the walk hadn’t had the same crap-your-pants factor when he’d been the one leading the prisoners: back in his KGB days. The KGB of course was a thing of the past, replaced by the FSB, but no one was fooled, no one at all.

What worried Yuri, truly worried him, was that since his transfer to Lefortovo his wealth had meant nothing. In a country where you could buy your own cop for twenty US dollars this was extremely disturbing. It could only mean one of two things: that the political influence brought to bear here came from the very top; or they’d had the shit scared out of them and the fear of what would happen if they were caught accepting a bribe from him was greater than the lure of the money. Either way it left Yuri sleeping with one fucking blanket and surviving on a diet of boiled potatoes.

They reached the interrogation room and found two men outside, one either side of the door, both of them had short, almost military-regulation hair cuts, expensive clothes, and the blank-eyed stares of seasoned FSB men. One of them knocked and then opened the door, only the prison guard escorted him inside.

One man waited in the room. He was standing near one of the barred windows, staring out. He was tall and whip-chord lean, impeccably dressed in a dark grey bespoke tailored suit; pale, mauve, silk shirt; and striped tie. His thick, short brown hair was turning white, as was his well trimmed moustache and goatee. It didn’t detract from the man’s handsome, if heavily lined, face.

The guard removed Yuri’s chains.

“Leave us!”

It wasn’t until the guard had left that the man turned away from the window and smiled at him. The broad smile reached the brown eyes but that meant very little with this man; whose eyes Yuri had disliked meeting from the day the two of them had first met. There was something deep within Nikolai Uspensky’s eyes that made men shudder, something cold and empty.

“Yuri, you look terrible old friend.”

Yuri sat on one of the metal chairs that were bolted to the floor. “You’d look terrible if you were stuck in this shit-hole. Give me a cigarette, and not a Russian one for pity's sake.”

Uspensky laughed and reached into the inside pocket of his jacket. He took one for himself before passing the packet over to Yuri. He lit both with a silver lighter that he returned to his pocket.

“This little holiday has done nothing for your temper I see.”

Yuri took a long grateful pull on the cigarette. “Not a great deal, no.”

Nikolai inspected the table carefully before perching on the edge near Yuri. “Consider this a minor inconvenience, a rock on life’s road.”

A small flame of hope ignited somewhere deep inside Yuri, but he didn’t let it show. “What does that mean exactly?”

“It means that you were incredibly stupid involving yourself with Ward Abbott. He was a problem you should have dealt with years ago!”

“He was useful.”

“He was a loose end, and you should know better than to leave those lying around.”

Yuri snorted, “Hindsight.” Everyone was a fucking expert with hindsight.

“Commonsense. Kirill recovered the Neski files without a hitch. It would have been a simple matter for him to have taken out Abbott, problems solved. But no… Abbott concocts this elaborate scheme to frame both Bourne and that half-witted zealot Conklin, and you send Kirill off to India to kill Jason Bourne.”

“And he _failed_!” Yuri snapped. “Your precious fucking Kirill failed. _Twice_.”

“I met with him when he returned from India. He thought it was a good kill, the driver in the back of the head at distance. He was proud of the shot. He didn’t even know the Kreutz girl existed, did he? You didn’t tell him about her.”

“It wasn’t relevant!”

Nikolai shook his head. “Bullshit Yuri! You know better. If he’d have known about her, he would have factored her in, been aware that the girl could have been the one driving the car and not Bourne. His plan would have included the girl. I trained Kirill not to leave the loose ends that you seem so fond of.”

“And now he’s one of them.” Yuri knew the words were a mistake the moment they left his mouth.

The smile faded from Nikolai’s face and he ground his cigarette out in the ashtray on the table. “Your attempt on his life in the hospital was foolish.”

“Only because it failed…”

“No, you’re wrong.”

“Why then?”

“Because Trediakovsky is _mine_ you arrogant little bastard!” Nikolai gripped the front of his shirt, hauling him up from the chair and shaking him like a dog. “I loaned him to you, that is all. What gives you the right to think you can destroy something that belongs to me?”

He released his grip and Yuri fell back into the chair gasping for breath and rubbing at his neck. He watched Nikolai carefully, saw him visibly calm himself.

“This is not why I am here.”

“Why are you here?” Yuri choked out.

Nikolai got off the table. “It will be announced, sometime next year, that the Justice Ministry is taking over responsibility for Lefortovo and the other pre-trial detention centres currently under the jurisdiction of the FSB,” he told Yuri as he walked back over to the window and looked out. “The change is purely cosmetic of course, a mask to satisfy Putin’s critics. That is all your being here ever was; cosmetic.”

“But the trial?”

“There will be no trial. The American’s are agreeable.”

“Why?”

“An exchange of favours: the whole thing will be dropped before it ever gets to court.”

“And I’m free?” Yuri asked, that small flame of hope suddenly rising again.

Nikolai gave him a nod.

“When? How long? Today, tomorrow?”

Uspensky laughed. “Are you so eager to leave?”

“I hate this fucking place!” Yuri realised that he had barely smoked his cigarette, though he still held on to it. He threw it into the ashtray. “May I have another?”

“Of course.”

Yuri took one, surprised to find his fingers shaking slightly. It was the relief, he knew it was. He put it in his mouth and Nikolai took out his lighter, flicking it to life and leaning over so Yuri could light his cigarette.

“No more teasing, you’re out of here today. I just have one thing to clear up?”

Yuri raised a curious eyebrow, “What’s that?”

He felt a sudden sharp pain in his neck, looked around to see Nikolai removing the hypodermic, capping the needle before it went in his pocket.

“A loose end,” he told him, smiling as Yuri began to fight for air.

~~~~~

Nikolai watched dispassionately as Gretkov pitched from the chair to the floor, where he twitched and flopped like a fish out of water. It took the man an inconveniently long time to die.

Though they’d known each other for many years Nikolai felt no great loss. The man’s arrogance had made him weak, foolish. Worst of all, he had involved Kirill in all of this, and now…

Kirill would not die like this; for the boy he would make it personal, beautiful… And he would grieve.

He strode over the body on the floor and knocked on the door. It was opened by one of his own men and he beckoned the prison guard over.

“You might want to alert the prison doctor,” he told him as he retrieved his overcoat and gloves from his man, slipped them on, “It would appear that Mr Gretkov has suffered a heart-attack.”

~~~~~~~~~~


	5. The Good Samaritan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Follow on from 'The Bourne Supremacy'

**Chapter 5**

~~~~~~~~~~~

Five attempts to read the same page of the novel she had bought on a whim over a year ago, and not opened until tonight, had finally convinced Pamela Landy to abandon this attempt at distraction and try to get some sleep.

Her mind kept wandering over the events of the past few days, since her less than pleasant meeting with Martin Marshall. Her opinion of Teddy Lawrence had gone from mild dislike, tinged by a touch of envy, to utter contempt. The man was the most arrogant, self-involved idiot she had ever met.

Ward Abbott, a master of mind games, had once told her that she ran her task force as though she were reading it from a book. It had touched a nerve at the time. She didn’t have the field experience of a man like Abbott, and she had allowed him to intimidate her to a certain extent. With Lawrence it was like watching a performance, and not a particularly good one. She had witnessed him make obvious mistakes time and again, which he later blamed on others. She had learned to avoid the man whenever possible and now kept her involvement with him to a minimum whilst putting a known procedure in place to contact Bourne.

If Bourne responded then she would pass on the message and information, as Director Marshall instructed, and that hopefully would be that, because working with and having to defer to Lawrence was simply soul destroying.

The arrogant fool was ill-equipped to deal with a man like Jason Bourne, or Kirill Trediakovsky, from what she’d read of the man: though there wasn’t very much information available on the Russian, and most of what they did have was conjecture.

There was more information on the man who was said to have trained him, Nikolai Uspensky. He held a senior, if somewhat vague, position in the Russian FSB. He was a man of considerable wealth and influence, and was on first name terms with some of the richest, most powerful people in the world.

He was a close personal friend of Putin himself, and had been since their KGB days. But behind the fairly respectable public image was a man with a terrifying and ruthless reputation as a hunter and killer of enemies of the state; be that the former Soviet Union or Russia. Also rumoured to be responsible for the training of the FSB elite, tales of his methods made Alexander Conklin’s training of Bourne and the other _Treadstone_ operatives sound like a walk in the park.

Teddy Lawrence was out of his depth and Pam wanted out. Three times today she’d started drafting her letter of resignation to Marty Marshall: and three times she’d abandoned it, feeding her efforts to the shredder.

She turned off the bedside lamp and tried to turn off her thoughts with it, will herself to relax. Hopefully the personal add they had placed in all of the major US newspapers that were available abroad, would yield a result and this would be over soon.

Pamela came awake suddenly, her eyes flashing to the clock on the nightstand. It was three AM. Something had woken her, but she couldn’t say what; a noise from outside perhaps? She always slept with a window slightly open, even in the winter. She couldn’t hear anything now but she trusted her instincts. Something had startled her awake.

The thought of burglars didn’t bother her. Her alarm system had been both developed and installed by the CIA, so no one was going to get in without her knowing, granted, that didn’t stop anyone from prowling around outside. Maybe she’d go to take a look…

She sat up, switched on the bedside lamp and almost leapt out of her skin.

A man was sitting on the easy chair that faced the foot of her bed. Although in the lamp light his face was partly in shadow, she recognised him from his photographs.

“Bourne!” So much for CIA alarm systems.

He wore dark, unassuming clothes, looked tidy, presentable. He was even kind of handsome, if you went for the boyish type, but he wouldn’t stand out anywhere. He wasn’t the sort to turn heads…

No wonder they had had such trouble finding him.

“You said it was urgent _Aunt Pamela_. Didn’t you think I’d have more than just your cell number?”

It should have occurred to her. After all he’d had no difficulty in finding her before.

“I didn’t expect you to make face to face contact," she countered. “I thought that might be something you’d avoid.”

His gloved hands were clearly visible, and there was no weapon levelled at her, but it didn’t make her feel any less vulnerable or any less afraid of this man.

“I though you understood that I wanted to be left alone, that I wanted you people out of my life.”

“There were never any promises! And technically you’re still a wanted man.

He raised an eyebrow at that. “Technically?”

“There’s a way to change that. A one time only offer on the table. If you accept it then you’ll get what you want. We wipe the records clean; Jason Bourne becomes an ordinary citizen, free to go and do whatever you want to without always having to look over your shoulder. _Treadstone_ and everything it involved will be finally over for you.”

He didn’t look particularly impressed, not that she had ever imagined he would be. “And what do I have to do?”

“What you were trained for.” She pointed to her briefcase, lying beside the dressing table. “Can I get that?”

He got out of the chair and retrieved it for her, setting it on the bed before opening it and checking its contents. Pam reached in, pulled out a stuffed A4 envelope and handed it to him before shutting the case and setting it on the floor.

He moved back to the chair before opening it and she saw his eyebrow rise as he pulled out the photograph.

“Kirill Trediakovsky,” she told him.

“I didn’t know his name,” Bourne said quietly.

“One last job. You take out Trediakovsky and the slate is wiped clean, you have my word.”

He looked up at her. “If you want me to do something don’t distance yourself from it by wrapping it up in glib packaging. At least say the words.”

“We want you to kill him.” He was right, it wasn’t as easy to say, wasn’t as comfortable, and she understood that maybe it shouldn’t be.

He returned the photograph to the envelope and got to his feet.

“You’ll do it?” she asked him, surprised he didn’t ask for an explanation, a reason.

He nodded.

“How do we keep in contact?”

“You’ll know when it’s done.”

He was almost out of the door when she built up enough courage to ask him the one thing she didn’t understand. “Bourne?”

He turned slightly.

“Why didn’t you kill him in Moscow when you had the opportunity?”

He didn’t make eye contact and a small frown creased his brow. There was a pause before he answered, simply, “I’d stopped him. I knew he wouldn’t keep coming after that.”

“But he killed Marie Kreutz.”

Again, there was a small pause before he answered, but this time he met her eyes. “He was the weapon. Someone else, someone like you, was the one with their finger on the trigger.”

He walked out of the room but she never heard him leave the house. When she had calmed herself down enough to go and check she found no sign of forced entry, everything was locked up tight, and her alarm had been reset.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Officer Diane Jolly gave a grin and a wave to Maurice Coleman, the concierge of the apartment block, as he buzzed her into the foyer. She’d known him since she was a rookie. He’d been a good cop when he was on the force, one of the best, and it was a damn shame that he’d been invalided out. Still, he seemed happy enough these days. He got to spend more time with his wife and kids and, coupled with his pension, he wasn’t making a bad living.

Awkwardly, she brushed some of the snow off her top coat, giving him a sheepish smile when she saw the mess she was making on the pristine floor.

“Hey, Maurice! How’s the family?”

“All good, Diane, thanks. You here to see the Professor?” He was a good looking man, a little too old for her, but the type she went for; tall, broad shouldered, really nice eyes, his wife Chelle was a damn lucky woman.

“Yeah… Got an hour or so to kill before my shift starts. You seen much of the Prof the last couple of days?”

He shook his slowly balding head. “Can’t say that I have. I think he’s taking a few days off from the hospital. Apart from him taking a couple of trips out in the car I’ve barely seen him. Is there anything wrong?”

She shrugged then slowly shook her head. “I don’t know. He left me a message cancelling our Wednesday lunch date and I haven’t heard from him since, so I thought I’d drop by… See what he’s been up to.”

Maurice frowned. “Like I said, I haven’t seen much of him. Want me to ask Artie?”

Artie was the night man. You could march a jazz band through the foyer when Artie was on duty and he’d somehow manage to miss it.

She smiled, “Not a whole lot of point.”

Maurice sighed, “True… Man’s a waste of time but with his uncle being the boss…” He gave a shrug. “Look, if it turns out the Professor’s not feeling too good or whatever, let me know, huh? I can keep an eye out for him. He’s a good man.”

“One of the best,” she agreed. “Wanna buzz me through? I’ll use the stairs.”

“Sure thing, Diane.”

Diane jogged up the stairs to the Prof’s floor. She’d had an uneasy feeling about him for the past few days. She’d seen the reports of the anonymous calls about a homeless man being mugged and the descriptions of the man who had come to his rescue sounded an awful lot like the Professor, though God knows she’d told him over and over not to get involved in that kind of thing. She’d been intending to speak to him about it when they met for lunch, but he’d called and cancelled.

That was nothing unusual. Even though he wasn’t working as much these days he was still in demand at the hospital and couldn’t always make it. The thing that had set the alarm bells off was that he’d left the message, but then hadn’t called back. The Prof was a gentleman, old school, and that just wasn’t like him.

She came out of the staircase and into the fourth floor vestibule, pausing to catch her breath before ringing the Professor’s door bell.

~~~~~~~~~~


	6. The Good Samaritan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Follow on from 'The Bourne Supremacy'

**Chapter 6**

Diane Jolly was just about to ring the Professor’s doorbell for a second time when she heard the key being turned in the lock.

The Professor usually greeted her with that twinkling blue-eyed smile of his, so it was odd to see them widen in surprise and even stranger to see a hint of guilt in them before the smile took over.

“Diane, what are you doing here?” His sleeves were rolled up and he was carrying a towel.

“Came to see how you were doin’. You missed lunch, didn’t call back. I was worried.”

“I meant to call you back and explain,” he told her, “but I was distracted. I do apologise.”

She nodded. “So you gonna invite me in, make a cold cop a hot coffee?”

“Oh, yes of course.” The smile he gave her was nervous to say the least. “Do come in.”

She followed him in, taking off her hat and placing it on the hall table. As she did she noticed an odd collection of objects in a bowl. It contained what looked like an old newspaper clipping; some small change; what might have been a cross and chain; and a set of odd looking keys on a coin-style key ring. The coin thing looked foreign. The lettering on it certainly was. There were a few other things, but she didn’t look too closely, following the Prof into the kitchen instead.

“So am I forgiven,” he asked her, “for not making it to lunch?”

“Guess so… Not too sure I forgive you for not calling me, though.”

“I am sorry. I’ve been a little caught up in things, no excuse I know…”

“What kinda things?”

“It… erm… It’s research… Concerning a patient, at the hospital. That may sound terribly boring but it’s involving I assure you, and it is important. We do what we can…”

“To help others,” she finished for him with a smile. “I know. I just worry about you a little. I don’t want to think about you doing too much, not having any fun.”

“I have a great deal of fun, thank you very much,” he told her, with that same indulgent smile her mother gave her when she thought she was talking out of her ass. “Just because it isn’t what you would class as fun doesn’t mean that I don’t enjoy it.”

“You mean all that stuffed-shirt highbrow stuff?”

“There’s nothing remotely stuffy about the opera or the ballet, as you’d discover if you’d climb down off your tough, New Jersey, tomboy horse and actually come with me.”

She gave him the withering look she usually reserved for suspects. “Not wearing a dress and listening to some woman with plaits and horns sing! Not for you, or anyone else!”

He laughed and got on with making coffee. “You’re a lost cause.”

“Now you even sound like my Mom,” she groaned. “You got any cookies to nibble with the coffee?”

“I don’t buy biscuits, you know that.”

Diane shook her head. “Cookies, they’re cookies, you’re goin’ all English on me again.” The dirty look he gave her was priceless. “Sorry man,” she grinned, “I meant Welsh.”

“You give me the worst insult anyone could possibly give a Welshman and all you can do is smile at me?”

“I don’t get it… Your wife Margaret was English, right?”

“She was indeed, but she had other wonderful qualities, so I forgave her. Take a look in the refrigerator. You’re bound to find something munchy in there.”

There was chicken broth, lots of it, from the kosher deli a couple of blocks away. He’d told her about this stuff the only time they’d ever had a conversation about Margaret’s illness. _Why the hell would he be buying the stuff now she wondered?_

“You feelin’ okay Prof?”

“Yes, I’m fine. Why do you ask?”

“Just noticed all the chicken broth.”

“Ah,” he sighed, “I just… I could smell it when I went into the Deli and I couldn’t resist buying some.”

“You bought enough of it.”

“An impulse buy. It seemed to go with the cold weather. I bought one of their cheesecakes too. Why don’t we have a piece with our coffee?”

He didn’t tell lies very well… If he’d been a suspect she would have hauled him in for questioning. Only he wasn’t, he was her friend, and whatever it was he was keeping from her, she guessed he must have his reasons. It wasn’t that he was a fool, he was probably the most brilliant man she had ever met, but he was so naïve at times, so soft hearted.

“Yeah, cheesecake would be good,” she said, turning and giving him a smile.

They chatted over coffee but it was pretty clear that his heart wasn’t in it. He seemed distracted, and she was pretty sure if he weren’t such a polite man he’d already be easing her out the door.

“So did you go out the other night?” she asked. “Take ‘round the blankets and stuff?”

He nodded. “I was only out for a short while; it pains me to say that it was too cold to be out for any length of time.”

“Yeah,” she agreed, “it’s been pretty nasty the past few days. Doesn’t keep the bad guys off the streets though; we had a couple of anonymous calls about a group of guys causing trouble that night, beating up on some homeless guy on your regular patch. You didn’t notice or hear anything odd did ya?”

He snatched up her plate and cup taking them over to the sink with his. “No, I didn’t. Was the man badly hurt?” he asked, his back to her.

“You’d think so from the calls, but by the time we got a patrol car there no one was around. The guys did a quick canvas of the area but no one claimed to have seen or heard anything. You know how it is… Mostly business premises round there anyway. I’m just hoping we don’t find a body when the snow melts, hate to think the guy might have crawled off somewhere.”

“Yes, quite.”

“Well,” Diane got off her stool at the kitchen counter, “I’d better get going, I’m on duty in thirty minutes, are you gonna…”

Something hit the floor in one of the other rooms with a dull, heavy thud.

“What the hell was that?” she asked the Prof.

“I… I’d pulled a small stack of reference material off the shelves in the spare room, left them on the bed when I heard the door bell. It sounds as though they just fell off,” he gave her a smile.

“ _That_ was books?”

He nodded. “Medical books tend to be rather weighty tomes.”

He was lying to her again, that much was obvious. He’d come to the door holding a towel. Why the hell would he be lying? It wouldn’t be anything illegal, not with the Prof, but why did he feel the need to hide things from _her_ of all people?

“Okay, I’ll leave you in peace with your weighty tome things.”

They went back out into the hall and the Prof helped her on with her coat and handed her her hat. “If you need me for anything just give me a call, okay? I’ll drop by later in the week maybe.”

He bent forward and gave her a quick peck on the cheek, something he very rarely did. “I really am fine Diane,” he told her sincerely, “but you’re an angel for caring. Now off you go, and try not to be _too_ hard on the bad guys.”

She smiled. “Do my best. You take care now.”

“I will.”

~~~~~~~~

David locked the door to the apartment, grabbed his medical bag from the hall closet and went straight to the guest room, having no doubts whatsoever as to exactly what had hit the floor.

Kirill was laid out on the rug when David got into the bedroom. From the sluggish nature of his movements it was clear that he was just coming round.

David knelt on the floor beside him. “Lie still!” he told him, “Let me take a look at you.”

He was struggling a little, clearly finding it difficult to coordinate his movements. His hand went up to his head as he murmured in Russian. David caught the pungent smell of urine just a moment before he realised the rug beneath him was wet… and so was the man.

“Kirill, can you hear me?”

There was another quiet stream of Russian.

“English Kirill! I need you to speak English! Can you hear me?”

Confused hazel eyes frowned up at David, “ _Da_ … I hear…”

“Were you trying to reach the bathroom on your own?”

“…Bathroom…?”

“I’m afraid you’re wet. Don’t worry…”

David witnessed the younger man slowly catch his meaning. Kirill was clearly very distressed, switching back to Russian as he turned his face away into the cradle of his own arms.

“It’s alright,” David reassured him, stroking his shoulder gently, “Nothing that can’t be cleaned up in a few minutes, but I need you to tell me, first of all, if you hurt anywhere.”

“I-I…” Kirill couldn’t focus on what David was saying to him, his head was pounding, and nothing made sense. He didn’t know what he was doing on the floor, couldn’t work out how he’d got there. “What happened?”

“You’ve had a fall, try not to worry about it. I need you to let me know if there’s anything hurting, more than before that is?” he asked him gently.

He slowly shook his head. He was embarrassingly aware of the wetness beneath him, and desperate to move out of it. Try as he might he couldn’t affect his usual mask, couldn’t hide his distress from his Samaritan.

“ _Pozhalujsta_!” he pleaded, before realising David wouldn’t understand. ”Please!” he looked up at him, “I want to get up… Out of this.”

“Alright, let me help you up and over to the chair there. Then we can get those things off you.”

His arms and legs didn’t want to cooperate, and he struggled to get to his feet, even with help, but they made it to the chair and he let David undress him before he sat down. The older man left him for a few moments to fetch a wash cloth and towel, and Kirill felt what little energy he had left begin to drain away. He felt so tired, his body so heavy, and the headache threatened to overwhelm him.

“Is your head hurting?” he wasn’t even aware that David had returned until he spoke. “Did you hit it when you fell?”

“I d-don’t know, can’t remember.” It didn’t feel like that kind of pain. He ran a slow, leaden hand over his head as David washed him and dried him off.

“Is there a bump?”

“ _Niet_ , is just headache.”

David helped him into bed, covered him.

“I need to examine you now. Ideally,” David paused and Kirill heard the slight sigh in his voice as he continued, “I’d like to take you to the hospital…”

“ _Niet_!” He hadn’t expected this. He’d thought they had an agreement! “No hospital!”

“Can you tell me why?” David asked him.

He couldn’t tell him, wouldn’t!

He’d been wrong to let this man help him, bring him here. He shouldn’t have allowed it. He glared at the old man and then started to sit up, “My things, my clothes, I want them!”

“Lie down,” David told him gently.

“I- I must go…” but it was easier to say than do. The effort was already taking its toll, using up what little strength he had left.

“Lie down,” the old man repeated. “You’re in no fit state to go anywhere.”

He placed a gentle hand on Kirill’s shoulder. “I didn’t mean to distress you, I’m merely concerned. I can’t force you to go to hospital and I won’t try. Lay back now, _please_?”

The anger, aimed not at David but at himself, slowly faded and Kirill collapsed back into the pillows.

“Will you tell me how you feel?” David wanted to know. “Honestly?”

Kirill nodded. “Just the headache… And I am tired, very tired.”

“Then I’ll make this as quick as I can,” he told him, pulling over his bag. “I want you to relax. Try and rest now.”

Kirill was too exhausted to consider anything else.

~~~~~~~~~~~


	7. The Good Samaritan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Follow on from 'The Bourne Supremacy'

**Chapter 7**

 **  
CIA Headquarters, Langley, Virginia   
**

“Is this true?”

Teddy Lawrence was in her office, brandishing a report in Pamela Landy’s face before she’d even had time to remove her coat.

“Is what true?” She knew what the report had to be, but she had no intention of making life any easier for Lawrence.

He smacked at the file with the back of his hand. “Bourne! He was at your house last night?”

She nodded as she finished taking off her coat, hanging it on the coat stand along with her scarf. “Of course it’s true,” she told him as crossed to her desk and sat down.

Lawrence had followed her, a mortified look on his face. “What the hell was he doing?”

“He saw the ad in the personals… It’s all in there.”

“But…”

“But what?” she interrupted. “He didn’t make phone contact? Didn’t do as you expected? Did you really think that he’d just keep repeating the same scenario over and over?”

“We have no surveillance, no confirmation he was even in the house! Our people didn’t find so much as a fingerprint!”

“I know Teddy, I _was_ there. I’m the one who had less than three hours sleep last night.”

He threw himself down in the chair in front of her desk. “I have to ask myself if this isn’t all some elaborate hoax just to get yourself back in Marty’s good books.”

“You’ve got some damn nerve mister!” If he’d been close enough she would have slapped him. “You know what I hope?”

She didn’t wait for a reply. “I hope that before this is over you find _yourself_ alone in a room with Jason Bourne. I like scuba diving, did you know that?”

Lawrence frowned in confusion and shook his head.

“Last year I took my vacation in South Africa, a diving holiday with the specific purpose of getting my first look at a Great White shark. It’s quite an experience, you dive inside a cage lowered from a boat and they throw dead fish and blood in the water in the hope of attracting the sharks.”

“At first,” she went on, “just the small ones come, six to ten feet long, and it’s not so bad. Then, suddenly, the Great White arrives and all the little ones make a quick exit. This huge shark swims around the cage, and occasionally it butts up against it, tests its strength, and all the time that dark, cold eye just stares at you, and you wonder what the hell it’s going to do…”

“Not that I don’t find your vacation memoirs charming,” he interrupted, acidly, “but is this going anywhere, does it have _any_ significance at all?”

“Given the choice I would rather have gone into that water without a cage and faced that shark than have spent those fifteen minutes alone with Jason Bourne last night, the man scares me that damn much! So I hope you get your chance to meet him Teddy, I really do!”

He rolled his eyes at her and brandished the file once more. “Bullshit aside, this isn’t going according to plan.”

“Did you really think it would?” she asked, trying to keep the sarcasm from her voice. “Dear god Teddy, you must have read Bourne’s file. He’s not going to do what you expect, what’s predictable…”

“Yes! Okay,” Lawrence snapped, “I get it! Bourne’s the boogie man! Unpredictable, scary, and all the rest of the crap that fills his file! The thing is _Pam_ , there’s a bigger picture here. The Russians are expecting us to deal with this, to keep them informed of all developments. It is vital that we keep tabs on Bourne, but because you lost your grip on the situation…”

“I never had a grip on the situation,” she interrupted calmly. “And I’m not ashamed to admit it. In all honesty I never expected him to accept the offer in the first place, but he has. All we can do now is wait.”

“That’s unacceptable!”

“Not to Marty,” she countered, playing her ace. “He spoke to me on the phone earlier this morning. He thinks that under the circumstances it went well, that I did, to quote him, ‘an excellent job’. Now why don’t you go and do yours?”

The slamming of her office door as he left put a smile on Pamela’s face that lasted the whole of the morning.

~~~~~~~~~

Jason Bourne wasn’t sure why he had taken the file from Pamela Landy and he still wasn’t entirely sure why he was here in a blisteringly cold New York.

It had been a shock to see Trediakovsky’s face in the photograph. He remembered the guy from Goa, still carried the scar from his bullet after their encounter in Moscow.

He hadn’t been sure that the Russian had survived the crash that had eventually stopped him. He’d known the man was badly hurt. At the time his training, his Treadstone conditioning, and his own instinctive need to assuage his guilt for ever involving Marie Kreutz in his life, had been screaming at him to kill the guy, finish him off… but he hadn’t been able to...

Marie had wanted him to deal with things another way…

The death of the Neski’s by his hand had already been weighing heavily on his mind. In truth he thought it probably always would. And that had made him hesitate, had given him the strength to walk away…

So why had he taken the job now?

Pamela Landy had something to do with it. She was the only one of her kind that he had ever come remotely close to trusting. There was a sincerity about her; he had the impression that she did what she did in the belief that it served the greater good. That couldn’t be said for a man like Ward Abbott… And then there were those like Alexander Conklin; whose perception of serving the greater good had been warped beyond all recognition.

There was another reason too.

Bourne was tired, weary of hiding, of always having to be cautious, always looking over his shoulder. Without Marie there was no point to it all.

Days, sometimes weeks, would pass now without him having anyone to talk to, and he hated that isolation, feared what it might do to him. He hadn’t attempted to form a relationship with anyone else, though; not because he didn’t crave the companionship, because he did, but because he couldn’t involve anyone else in what passed for his life, couldn’t put anyone in that kind of danger again.

Landy was offering him the chance for something as close as he might get to a normal life, and to get it, all he had to do was take someone else’s life; Kirill Trediakovsky, a man he actually had reason to hate, reason to kill.

There wasn’t a great deal of information about the Russian in the file and much of that was speculation. There was the one clear photograph, which Bourne had instantly recognised, amidst a host of blurred possible sightings. The man had an impressive reputation, though, which Jason knew from experience was well deserved.

The information on his current status and location had come from an outside source. Bourne was guessing it was from the Russians themselves, though why they would supply the intelligence was a mystery. There was no information detailing why the CIA wanted him dead, but that didn’t surprise Bourne. These things were always done on a need to know basis. The assassin seldom knew why he was contracted to kill.

Trediakovsky had to be desperate if he was living rough in New York. The file suggested that he’d either exhausted his funds or had no access to them, but that didn’t seem enough of an explanation. Any operative worth their salt would know ways and means to get money.

The criminal underworld of any major city would have a use for a man of Kirill’s talents.

Living rough was either some ploy on the part of the Russian; or he was desperate to stay hidden; or perhaps he was simply just desperate. Bourne remembered that night in Switzerland before he met Marie, the Swiss police attempting to move him on from his bed on a park bench in the snow. He’d been pretty desperate himself back then.

The Police reports from Manhattan showed some promise. According to the Precinct’s records three separate callers, all anonymous, had contacted them about a group of Russian men beating up a vagrant. Two of the callers had made mention of a smartly dressed man coming to his aid. The cops hadn’t found anyone when they got there, and a quick canvas of the area had proved fruitless. There was a homeless shelter and a soup kitchen of sorts in the area that might prove worth a visit, but first he wanted to talk to the local cops, see what they could tell him. They generally knew a whole lot more than went into their reports.

This would be one job, a last job that would give him a fresh start. No more running, no more hiding... It wasn’t like he hadn’t killed before.

~~~~~~~

Kirill lay still and quiet on top of his bed as his Samaritan began to remove the stitches from beside his eye. He’d already removed the ones in his scalp.

Kirill hadn’t realised that he’d been here for five days. He’d pretty much lost track of time. He slept so much that his body clock seemed to have turned itself off, and he could never really gauge how much time had passed from his falling asleep to waking up again.

He was constantly tired. David had assured him that this wasn’t a bad thing, that his body simply needed the rest.

David insisted that he also needed nourishment, and the man was always encouraging him to eat. Endless bowls of chicken broth at first, more solid food of late, but his appetite was poor.

He was walking around a little too. David had returned from one of his brief shopping trips with a small selection of clothes for him, just jog-pants, sweaters and some underwear. He’d not protested or passed comment, there was no point in doing so, but he was grateful. He didn’t harbour any fantasies about leaving right now. Just walking around the apartment left him incredibly tired and made his ankle throb with pain, though he did his best to hide that from his Samaritan.

He knew he had to leave here as soon as he was able, and not just for his own sake. This man David had been good to him, and he had no desire to put him at risk.

“Almost done…”

Kirill turned his attention back to the man removing the last of the stitches from his face.

“If I say so myself, I do good work. This should barely scar.” David took out the last one and then removed his gloves. “How does the eye feel now?”

Gentle fingers probed his face and the tender, still slightly swollen flesh around his eye.

“It is good.”

“You say the same thing about your ankle, and I know that’s a lie. Treat me to some truth.”

Kirill risked a glance at the smiling blue eyes. “A little tender, that is all.”

“And what about your vision?”

“It is good. _Truly_ ,” he added quickly, resisting the urge to smile.

“I need to take a quick look. I know you don’t like this so I want you to take a few deep breaths and relax for me.”

He hated the light from the torch being shone in his eyes. The first time David had done it Kirill had fought to get away. It still took him a good deal of self-control to be still and control the feeling of panic that threatened to overwhelm him. It had provoked a memory, or a dream, that first time; in it he couldn’t move, couldn’t get away from the lights being constantly shone into his eyes, and he wasn’t able to close them.

“Just relax Kirill.”

He concentrated on the sound of David’s voice, on keeping his breathing even and keeping the fear that he couldn’t explain, even to himself, at bay.

“That’s fine, well done.”

David turned off the pencil torch and sat back a little. “I have to go out for a while this evening. I have a pre-arranged dinner engagement.”

Kirill could see that this disturbed the man but he was uncertain exactly why. “You have been out before.”

“Yes I know, but this will be for so much longer and…”

“I will sleep, most probably,” Kirill pointed out.

“I know, I’m just not particularly happy about leaving you for such a length of time.” He sighed, “I’m going to take my cell phone and I’ll leave you the number. I want you to promise me that if you start to feel unwell you’ll phone me straight away.”

“I will be f…”

David rolled his eyes and Kirill surrendered, “I promise, I will call you.”

David nodded, though clearly he still wasn’t happy. “If it weren’t that the dinner was with Diane then I’d cancel.”

“Diane, she is a daughter?” Kirill asked him.

“No, I have no children I’m afraid, though in a way Diane has taken on the mantel of daughter. I missed our lunch on Wednesday and she was clearly concerned when she popped in.”

He frowned. “Popped in?”

“She came to check up on me. It was the day you… fell.”

“Came here?”

David nodded and Kirill couldn’t hide his anxiety. “She knows I am here?”

“No! Don’t worry,” the older man said quickly. “Though she knew I wasn’t being completely honest with her I think.”

Kirill relaxed a little. “She is a doctor too?”

His Samaritan looked suddenly uncomfortable. “Actually she’s a police officer.”

" _Chjort!_ ”

Kirill shook his head. The feeling of security he had been trying so hard to deny over the last day or two, evaporated, and uncertainty moved in to take it’s place. “I-I cannot risk…”

“Calm down!” David placed a steadying hand on his shoulder.

“It’s alright Kirill. She doesn’t suspect you’re here. There’s nothing to be alarmed about. I promised you I wouldn’t involve the police, and I’m a man of my word. Trust me, please.”

To his growing alarm Kirill couldn’t see that he had any choice.

~~~~~~~~~


	8. The Good Samaritan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Follow on from 'The Bourne Supremacy'

**Chapter 8**

Nikolai Uspensky gazed at the ceiling above him, watching the slow-moving wisps of smoke from his cigarette. He had been smoking a lot lately, too much to be healthy, and in truth he seldom enjoyed it. The lighting of a cigarette, the smoking, was a tool that he used and had done so for years. It was a way to pause when a situation became difficult, to take stock of any situation and think it through, and it had always served him well.

A post-coital cigarette was one of the rare times he did enjoy smoking. A cigarette after sex, in his opinion, seemed to prolong that almost narcotic head rush that followed orgasm… though that was, sadly, not always the case.

He ground out the cigarette in the ashtray on the nightstand then turned to gaze at the figure in bed beside him.

Last night had been a mistake, but the situation had been so delightfully familiar: a group of eager, young hopefuls in FSB training college, all standing to rigid attention in their barrack room, awaiting inspection by the Colonel they had heard so much about. He had enjoyed that ripple of tension in the air as they strained to keep their eyes straight ahead, not look at him.

This one had let his eyes slip…

Nikolai would have walked slowly past him if those eyes had not seemed so familiar. For one instant those eyes had seemed larger, the mouth more perfectly formed, the fullness of that bottom lip even more inviting…

He put his error down to wishful thinking, to morbid sentimentality.

One night, some years ago, he had gone to the college barracks specifically to personally assess Kirill Trediakovsky. Despite a poor attendance record in his last years of school, and a number of lacklustre jobs since leaving, the young man had aced the FSB entrance examinations. In his first year at the college he had made exceptional progress, coming first in all his classes. His IQ tested well above average, and the college psychiatrist reported him focused and highly motivated, just the type Nikolai looked for when recruiting for the FSB elite.

His looks had been an unexpected bonus.

Over six feet tall, long limbed and broad shouldered, Kirill had a face that Nikolai had only ever been able to describe as beautiful. The strong jaw and sharp nose were merely incidental to the breathtaking eyes. Large and dark, Nikolai had thought them to be brown at first, though they had, in fact, proved to be hazel. The mouth was perfectly drawn with full decadent looking lips, the crease of the plump, bottom lip the most inviting thing he had ever seen. All of this topped off by thick hair that was so dark it was almost black, its effect turning Kirill from wide-eyed innocent to fallen angel in the blink of an eye.

He had taken Kirill from the training college that very night. An eager, if surprised, recruit to the FSB elite training programme, he had been unaware of what that would mean for him. Breaking him had been a slow and thorough process, carefully controlled by the highly skilled doctors and psychiatrists Nikolai had brought with him from his days with the KGB: all of whom had been inspired by his personal interest in the young man.

Kirill’s conditioning and retraining had been extremely intensive, and Nikolai had monitored every step. All those involved considered the outcome an outstanding success. Kirill was a finely honed weapon: tenacious, intelligent, and highly skilled. Put to work in the field he proved to be an exceptional operative and Nikolai felt an almost parental pride in his achievements.

He studied the face of the young man sleeping beside him, failing now to see any similarity with Kirill.

There were tear tracks on his cheeks and a less than pleasant mixture of blood from a split lip; snot from his constant snivelling; and a fair amount of ejaculate.

Perhaps he _had_ been a little insistent; there was a necklace of slowly darkening bruising around his throat. Nikolai was the first to admit that he could be a little demanding of his lovers. He had been of Trediakovsky.

Kirill’s conditioning demanded that he submit to Nikolai, do anything and everything he was told to do. What had fascinated Nikolai was the young man’s inability to hide his true feelings, to keep that awareness from those extraordinary eyes of his… It had often led to hours of experimentation.

Nikolai sighed at the memory.

Such a waste: to lose Kirill because of that damn fool Gretkov, although he himself was to blame, at least to some extent. Loaning him to Gretkov had been a mistake. However the gift from Yuri of shares in Pecos Oil had added considerably to his personal fortune when he’d sold them two years ago. Such was the price of capitalism.

And on the subject of capitalism…

He got out of bed and slipped on his robe before going through to his study. Taking a seat at his desk, Nikolai opened his address book. He checked his watch before dialling the secure number for his young American friend.

It was answered almost immediately. “Lawrence.”

There was an edge of irritation in the voice.

“Teddy, good afternoon. Am I interrupting anything?”

“Err… Colonel Uspensky… Just a moment please.”

Nikolai could hear Lawrence’s muffled voice as he asked someone, a secretary perhaps, to leave the room.

“I was ringing for a brief progress report. I can call back if you’re busy.”

“No, Sir, wait. It-it’s fine.”

“I’m _not_ interrupting anything am I?” Politeness he found was always disarming.

“Sir?”

“If you’re too busy, involved in other matters, I can call back.”

“No, no, it’s fine sir.”

Nikolai smiled, enjoying the flustered replies. “Excellent. And how are you Teddy? Preparing for the Christmas holiday no doubt. Will you be spending the time with your parents? I believe I read you were unmarried.”

“With my fiancée’s parents here in DC.”

“You’re engaged, congratulations! Have you and your young lady set a date?”

“Err, no… Stefannie is on the fast track to a partnership in her law firm, so we thought we’d wait until that was confirmed before announcing a date.”

“Very sensible,” and in his opinion unutterably tedious, but the information might prove useful. “Now, to business. What of a location for Kirill Trediakovsky? You have confirmed he is in New York?”

“I… No, Sir… We-we haven’t actually been able to do that…”

The news was no surprise, in fact it was exactly what he’d predicted. “I thought we had an understanding, an accord between us that you would deal with this matter. We have upheld our side of the agreement. The death of Yuri Gretkov will be announced to the Russian media tomorrow. You have nothing I can pass on to my superiors?”

“Sir, I… The intelligence you gave us, we weren’t able… We reached a number of dead ends with our enquiries…”

“Dead? Ends?” This young man had an impressive entertainment value.

“Sir, wait, it’s not entirely bad news. I had an idea and Director Marshall has allowed me to run with it.”

Nikolai gave an exaggerated sigh. “An idea?”

“Jason Bourne; he’s the man Trediakovsky…”

Nikolai sat up straight in his chair, his good humour quickly evaporating. “I know who Jason Bourne is. What is his connection with the current situation?”

“We’ve made Bourne an offer. In return for dealing with the Trediakovsky situation we forget all about him.”

“And he has accepted?”

“Yes sir, he has.”

Bourne’s involvement was the last thing Nikolai would have expected from the Americans. It was not necessarily a problem, of course.

“Bourne has an unpredictable reputation. You have him under close supervision I presume?”

The American hesitated.

“You know his current location, you have regular reports?”

“Bourne is working independently…”

 _The fools had no control over Bourne!_ “Do I have to remind you of the fine print of our agreement?”

“Sir, we can deal with this. We’re doing everything in our power…”

“Find Bourne! Renew my faith in your agency’s competence. I will be in touch!” He hung up and slowly lit a cigarette.

Allowing the American’s to terminate Kirill themselves had never been part of the plan. He had intended only that they track him down. Sadly he had more faith in Bourne’s abilities than those of that fool Lawrence.

Nikolai sat back and pondered for a moment as he smoked, then he took up the phone once more, dialling the number of Nadia, his personal assistant, before putting out his cigarette.

“I want you to arrange a flight to Washington for me. It can go through official channels, it won’t hurt the Americans to be aware I am in the country. Contact our embassy there and advise them to expect me. I want a driver waiting at the airport. I’ll also want to speak with Alexander Scriabin, our head of security there, upon my arrival. Call me back when you have a flight time.”

“Yes, Colonel.”

“Oh, and Nadia, before I leave, I want all we have on Jason Bourne. You might also have some enquiries made about our CIA friend Edward Lawrence. It appears our files are out of date. The young man has a fiancée, Stefannie something. She’s a lawyer with family in Washington DC. Find out all you can for me.”

“Yes, Colonel.”

Nikolai returned to the bedroom to find his young guest waking up. Nervous eyes fixed on him.

“Remind me of your name again.”

“P-Pavel Devushkin, Colonel.”

He nodded and consulted his watch.

“You have perhaps an hour Pavel in which to convince me that it is worth keeping you alive,” he told him as he began to unfasten his robe.

~~~~~~~~~

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Well, I seem to have actually fixed my computer.  
The kiddies are out earning a crust, and hubby is settled on the sofa watching the Firefly weekend on Sci-Fi (<i>if you haven't been to see 'Serenity' yet what are you waiting for, go... now!</i>), so it's time to post another chapter of this.  
Jeremy Irons has been on TV this week in the UK playing Robert Dudley, the Earl of Leicester in Channel 4's Elizabeth I opposite Helen Mirren. The acting is in a class all of it's own, it's well worth watching if you get the chance.

<img src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v603/lemonbook/TheGoodSamaritan4.jpg">

Title: The Good Samaritan  
Author: Trisha  
Beta: <lj user=kazlynh>  
Rating: NC17 in places  
Artwork: Myself and the incredibly talented <lj user=_tayler>  
Summary: Follow on from 'The Bourne Supremacy'  
Feedback:Yes please <img src='http://lemonbook.icons.ljtoys.org.uk/mi/dot.gif' border=0 alt=''>

Archive: Moonlight Hotel & Urban Reveries, anywhere else please ask.

<a href="http://www.livejournal.com/tools/memories.bml?user=trishabooms&keyword=The+Good+Samaritan&filter=all">Previous parts here.</a>

<lj-cut text="Chapter 8">

<b>Chapter 8</b>

Nikolai Uspensky gazed at the ceiling above him, watching the slow-moving wisps of smoke from his cigarette. He had been smoking a lot lately, too much to be healthy, and in truth he seldom enjoyed it. The lighting of a cigarette, the smoking, was a tool that he used and had done so for years. It was a way to pause when a situation became difficult, to take stock of any situation and think it through, and it had always served him well.

A post-coital cigarette was one of the rare times he did enjoy smoking. A cigarette after sex, in his opinion, seemed to prolong that almost narcotic head rush that followed orgasm… though that was, sadly, not always the case.

He ground out the cigarette in the ashtray on the nightstand then turned to gaze at the figure in bed beside him.

Last night had been a mistake, but the situation had been so delightfully familiar: a group of eager, young hopefuls in FSB training college, all standing to rigid attention in their barrack room, awaiting inspection by the Colonel they had heard so much about. He had enjoyed that ripple of tension in the air as they strained to keep their eyes straight ahead, not look at him.

This one had let his eyes slip…

Nikolai would have walked slowly past him if those eyes had not seemed so familiar. For one instant those eyes had seemed larger, the mouth more perfectly formed, the fullness of that bottom lip even more inviting…

He put his error down to wishful thinking, to morbid sentimentality.

One night, some years ago, he had gone to the college barracks specifically to personally assess Kirill Trediakovsky. Despite a poor attendance record in his last years of school, and a number of lacklustre jobs since leaving, the young man had aced the FSB entrance examinations. In his first year at the college he had made exceptional progress, coming first in all his classes. His IQ tested well above average, and the college psychiatrist reported him focused and highly motivated, just the type Nikolai looked for when recruiting for the FSB elite.

His looks had been an unexpected bonus.

Over six feet tall, long limbed and broad shouldered, Kirill had a face that Nikolai had only ever been able to describe as beautiful. The strong jaw and sharp nose were merely incidental to the breathtaking eyes. Large and dark, Nikolai had thought them to be brown at first, though they had, in fact, proved to be hazel. The mouth was perfectly drawn with full decadent looking lips, the crease of the plump, bottom lip the most inviting thing he had ever seen. All of this topped off by thick hair that was so dark it was almost black, its effect turning Kirill from wide-eyed innocent to fallen angel in the blink of an eye.

He had taken Kirill from the training college that very night. An eager, if surprised, recruit to the FSB elite training programme, he had been unaware of what that would mean for him. Breaking him had been a slow and thorough process, carefully controlled by the highly skilled doctors and psychiatrists Nikolai had brought with him from his days with the KGB: all of whom had been inspired by his personal interest in the young man.

Kirill’s conditioning and retraining had been extremely intensive, and Nikolai had monitored every step. All those involved considered the outcome an outstanding success. Kirill was a finely honed weapon: tenacious, intelligent, and highly skilled. Put to work in the field he proved to be an exceptional operative and Nikolai felt an almost parental pride in his achievements.

He studied the face of the young man sleeping beside him, failing now to see any similarity with Kirill.

There were tear tracks on his cheeks and a less than pleasant mixture of blood from a split lip; snot from his constant snivelling; and a fair amount of ejaculate.

Perhaps he <i>had</i> been a little insistent; there was a necklace of slowly darkening bruising around his throat. Nikolai was the first to admit that he could be a little demanding of his lovers. He had been of Trediakovsky.

Kirill’s conditioning demanded that he submit to Nikolai, do anything and everything he was told to do. What had fascinated Nikolai was the young man’s inability to hide his true feelings, to keep that awareness from those extraordinary eyes of his… It had often led to hours of experimentation.

Nikolai sighed at the memory.

Such a waste: to lose Kirill because of that damn fool Gretkov, although he himself was to blame, at least to some extent. Loaning him to Gretkov had been a mistake. However the gift from Yuri of shares in Pecos Oil had added considerably to his personal fortune when he’d sold them two years ago. Such was the price of capitalism.

And on the subject of capitalism…

He got out of bed and slipped on his robe before going through to his study. Taking a seat at his desk, Nikolai opened his address book. He checked his watch before dialling the secure number for his young American friend.

It was answered almost immediately. “Lawrence.”

There was an edge of irritation in the voice.

“Teddy, good afternoon. Am I interrupting anything?”

“Err… Colonel Uspensky… Just a moment please.”

Nikolai could hear Lawrence’s muffled voice as he asked someone, a secretary perhaps, to leave the room.

“I was ringing for a brief progress report. I can call back if you’re busy.”

“No, Sir, wait. It-it’s fine.”

“I’m <i>not</i> interrupting anything am I?” Politeness he found was always disarming.

“Sir?”

“If you’re too busy, involved in other matters, I can call back.”

“No, no, it’s fine sir.”

Nikolai smiled, enjoying the flustered replies. “Excellent. And how are you Teddy? Preparing for the Christmas holiday no doubt. Will you be spending the time with your parents? I believe I read you were unmarried.”

“With my fiancée’s parents here in DC.”

“You’re engaged, congratulations! Have you and your young lady set a date?”

“Err, no… Stefannie is on the fast track to a partnership in her law firm, so we thought we’d wait until that was confirmed before announcing a date.”

“Very sensible,” and in his opinion unutterably tedious, but the information might prove useful. “Now, to business. What of a location for Kirill Trediakovsky? You have confirmed he is in New York?”

“I… No, Sir… We-we haven’t actually been able to do that…”

The news was no surprise, in fact it was exactly what he’d predicted. “I thought we had an understanding, an accord between us that you would deal with this matter. We have upheld our side of the agreement. The death of Yuri Gretkov will be announced to the Russian media tomorrow. You have nothing I can pass on to my superiors?”

“Sir, I… The intelligence you gave us, we weren’t able… We reached a number of dead ends with our enquiries…”

“Dead? Ends?” This young man had an impressive entertainment value.

“Sir, wait, it’s not entirely bad news. I had an idea and Director Marshall has allowed me to run with it.”

Nikolai gave an exaggerated sigh. “An idea?”

“Jason Bourne; he’s the man Trediakovsky…”

Nikolai sat up straight in his chair, his good humour quickly evaporating. “I know who Jason Bourne is. What is his connection with the current situation?”

“We’ve made Bourne an offer. In return for dealing with the Trediakovsky situation we forget all about him.”

“And he has accepted?”

“Yes sir, he has.”

Bourne’s involvement was the last thing Nikolai would have expected from the Americans. It was not necessarily a problem, of course.

“Bourne has an unpredictable reputation. You have him under close supervision I presume?”

The American hesitated.

“You know his current location, you have regular reports?”

“Bourne is working independently…”

<i>The fools had no control over Bourne!</i> “Do I have to remind you of the fine print of our agreement?”

“Sir, we can deal with this. We’re doing everything in our power…”

“Find Bourne! Renew my faith in your agency’s competence. I will be in touch!” He hung up and slowly lit a cigarette.

Allowing the American’s to terminate Kirill themselves had never been part of the plan. He had intended only that they track him down. Sadly he had more faith in Bourne’s abilities than those of that fool Lawrence.

Nikolai sat back and pondered for a moment as he smoked, then he took up the phone once more, dialling the number of Nadia, his personal assistant, before putting out his cigarette.

“I want you to arrange a flight to Washington for me. It can go through official channels, it won’t hurt the Americans to be aware I am in the country. Contact our embassy there and advise them to expect me. I want a driver waiting at the airport. I’ll also want to speak with Alexander Scriabin, our head of security there, upon my arrival. Call me back when you have a flight time.”

“Yes, Colonel.”

“Oh, and Nadia, before I leave, I want all we have on Jason Bourne. You might also have some enquiries made about our CIA friend Edward Lawrence. It appears our files are out of date. The young man has a fiancée, Stefannie something. She’s a lawyer with family in Washington DC. Find out all you can for me.”

“Yes, Colonel.”

Nikolai returned to the bedroom to find his young guest waking up. Nervous eyes fixed on him.

“Remind me of your name again.”

“P-Pavel Devushkin, Colonel.”

He nodded and consulted his watch.

“You have perhaps an hour Pavel in which to convince me that it is worth keeping you alive,” he told him as he began to unfasten his robe.

~~~~~~~~~


	9. The Good Samaritan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Follow on from 'The Bourne Supremacy'

**Chapter 9**

A press card could open a lot of doors, give you access to the most surprising places, and Jason Bourne had had one made up in his John Michael Kane identity for some time. A machine at the bus station that printed out business cards had added to his fake I.D., with his name and the number of his newly acquired cell phone printed on the cards.

He handed the press card to the precinct’s desk sergeant, who studied it and him with some interest before handing it back and raising a curious eyebrow at him. “So what can I do for you Mr Kane?”

“I need some help,” he said pleasantly, “and I thought you guys might be the ones to come to. Christmas is coming up and I’m working on a human interest story. We all indulge ourselves at Christmas, right?”

The Sergeant didn’t look too impressed by his pitch so far but he stuck with it. “We spend vast sums on gifts, cards, decorations, food… Did you know that we waste almost as much food as we eat over the holiday period? I want to compare that with the plight of the forgotten members of our society, the city’s homeless.

“I did some research and discovered that this precinct deals with close to the highest percentage of homeless in New York, so I wanted to get your take on the homeless problem, your day to day dealings with these people. Do you have anyone who could spare the time to give me an interview?”

The sergeant remained poker faced as he leafed through what looked like an appointment book. “Might have been better if you’d made an appointment with our press liaison officer.”

Bourne shrugged. “Yeah I know, but a liaison… I mean, I heard there was an incident the other night, a bunch of city types beating up on some homeless guy. Does that kind of thing happen often?”

The sergeant sighed. “Where the hell do you people get hold of this stuff? Look, we get the odd wino causing trouble, reports of petty theft, and sometimes we have to crack down on the begging and the windshield washers, but we don’t get a lot of trouble from the street people.”

He leant down a little, resting his forearms on the desk, and gave Jason another once over. “Off the record?”

He nodded, “Sure.”

“That bunch the other night, they were Russians. Now I ain’t sayin’ I got anything against them personally, but they’re a bunch of crazy bastards. To my way of thinking that beating had more to do with them being Russian than with the guy being homeless. Not that we’re certain that the victim was living on the streets, but it sure sounds that way.”

Bourne nodded. “I hear those guys got chased off anyway, and by one man.”

The desk sergeant smiled. “Yeah, well the homeless around here have their own kinda guardian angel.”

“A what?” Bourne asked, returning the smile.

“The Prof. Can’t say too much, but to my mind if anyone deserves one of those humanitarian awards then it’s him. He’s a damn good man.”

“So who is he?”

The sergeant pulled a face. “I’ve kinda said too much as it is. The guy likes his privacy…”

Bourne nodded his encouragement. “I can appreciate that,” he told him, “but you haven’t said all that much. Is the guy some kind of vigilante?”

“Hell no!” the sergeant laughed. “He’s a man who does what he can for others, you know. That’s his thing. Most of us, we like to pass the homeless by pretty quick, try not to look too hard. We give ‘em some pocket change maybe, but not too much cuz we know they’re just gonna use it to buy booze or drugs, and to some extent that’s true.”

He paused and Jason gave him a nod of understanding, willing him to continue. “The Prof don’t think like that. He could do. He’s not short of a few dollars if you know what I mean, but he tries to help. He buys clothing, blankets, food, and he takes it ‘round personally so he knows it goes just where it’s needed.”

“He sounds like a good man,” Jason told him honestly. “Do you think he came between the homeless guy and this group of Russians the other night?”

“Sounds like something he’d do. Diane’s always warning him…”

“Diane?”

“Fuck!”

“Look,” Jason reassured him, “the last thing I want is to fuck this guy over for a story, but it seems to me that maybe he’s the one I should be interviewing about the homeless situation, not just the people at the local shelter. If there was a way…”

The sergeant looked uncertain. “One of the cops here is a friend.”

“This Diane?”

He nodded. “Diane Jolly.”

“Well maybe I could talk to her? Is she on duty?” At last he had a name, some kind of lead.

“Let me check the rosters.” The sergeant turned his attention to the computer on his desk. “She’s finished for the day, and she’s on a rest day tomorrow, sorry. Damn shame cuz I’m pretty sure she mentioned seeing him tonight.”

“Any chance of you giving me her home number?” It was worth a try.

“Sorry, son, but I can maybe give her a message, ask her to get in touch with you.”

“Hey that’d be great Sgt…” he checked the name tag on the man’s shirt, “Koslowski.”

“Hey, I’m not saying she’s gonna talk to you. More likely she’s gonna chew my ass off for opening my big mouth.”

Jason shrugged. “I’ll take my chances, see what she has to say. Thanks a lot, Sarge.”

The man nodded as he took the business card Jason handed to him.

~~~~~~~~

A quick visit to the homeless shelter and a spot of gentle digging, still in the guise of a journalist, and Jason discovered that the ‘Prof’ was actually a professor of medicine, though in what field, and at which hospital he couldn’t find out. He did however discover that the man lived locally.

It seemed more and more likely to Jason that this Professor had been the one to step in when the homeless man had taken a beating. And from what everyone had said about the Prof, it was becoming clear that he wouldn’t just have left it at that. He would have done all he could to help.

If the man who had taken the thrashing really was Trediakovsky, then it was likely that this Professor knew where he was. The reports all pointed to the man taking a severe beating, not one he’d be likely to walk away from under his own steam; so Bourne was guessing that if he wasn’t in a hospital under an assumed name then the Professor had taken him somewhere safe. The Professor had to be the key to finding the Russian, and the way to trace this Professor had to be through Officer Diane Jolly.

When he’d finished at the shelter he made his way to the nearest internet café for something to eat, a warm drink, and to see what, if anything, he could discover about the policewoman.

Surprisingly there was more than he expected. Diane Jolly was the youngest police woman in New York to receive a commendation, and she had received another since that one.

The two photographs of her that he found accompanied a newspaper article and a press release from the Mayor’s office. Neither was all that good, but even so he was pretty certain he’d be able to pick her out of a crowd. She was Hispanic with dark hair, large dark eyes, incredibly full lips, and high cheekbones. She wasn’t pretty, well not in the usual sense of the word, and she wasn’t what he’d call beautiful, but she was incredibly attractive. Sexy he guessed would be the best way to describe her. Her brief biography from the most recent commendation, eighteen months ago, told him that she had been born and continued to live in New Jersey.

There were surprisingly easy ways for those in the know to track people down, especially government employees. Serving police officers, retirees, the deceased and even those that resigned or were dismissed had their personal details listed on their city’s version of the National Crime Information Center computer. In theory police department personnel rang their local NCIC, gave them their code number, and once it was verified they would give you the information you wanted, but for members of the Security Services there was a back door, a direct access link to all NCIC computer systems provided you had an official access code.

Treadstone had had its own code, and Jason doubted it had been rescinded. Normally he wouldn’t consider finding an address this way. His use of the code would show up at Langley within twenty four hours, but this time… This time the CIA already knew where he was, and what he was doing.

~~~~~~~

Diane Jolly, dressed in a white towelling dressing gown, finished blow drying her hair and stared at herself critically in the full length mirror that stood in the corner of the bedroom.

The Prof had called her yesterday to arrange their monthly dinner. He’d been sweet, all apologies still about their missed lunch, and eager to make it up to her. He’d been so apologetic that she’d let him manipulate her a little, _push the boat out a touch_ was what he’d called it. What that meant was that he was taking her somewhere fancy. She didn’t much like fancy, but she knew he did.

Her room was a mess, littered with clothes she’d tried on and rejected. Her skirts were too short for fancy places; the few dresses she owned were either too clingy or too cheap looking.

She didn’t want to show the Prof up, give anyone the impression that he was the type who went after young women. She wanted them to look kinda father and daughter like, but she didn’t have a clue how to do that, and most of her attempts had made her look like a hooker. She finally settled on black pants, a white shirt blouse, and a short black jacket which, surprise, surprise, made her look like a cop, or maybe a lesbian, though for some reason a hell of a lot of people tended to think those two went hand in hand in her case, even some of her work mates.

Maybe she ought to get out more, find herself some nice guy…

She turned her attention to her hair and pondered which of the small array of styles in her limited repertoire she should choose for tonight: the scrunched up pony tail she laughingly called a French pleat seemed the most likely.

She was interrupted from her contemplation by the phone ringing, and she went over to the bed to answer it, perching on top of a pile of rejected clothing.

“Hello.”

“Hi, could I speak to Diane Jolly?”

She studied her too short fingernails wondering if she should maybe paint them, she was sure she had some polish somewhere…

“You got her.”

“Officer Jolly, my name is John Kane, I’m a journalist. Your name came up in a conversation with Sgt Koslowski earlier…”

“My name?”

“I’m working on a human interest story. It’s an article for The Times Christmas supplement, and I was hoping that you might be able to help me?”

She frowned, not understanding. “Help you how?”

“My article is on the homeless. I understand that you’re a friend of the Professor and… Well I was hoping that I might be able to convince you to speak to him on my behalf, see if he’d give me an interview. I’d be willing to keep his identity a secret.”

“Sorry Mr… Kane was it?”

“Yeah.”

“You must have gotten turned around somewhere man. I don’t know any Professor.”

She hung up and stared at the phone, struck by the feeling that there was something not quite right about the call. She picked up the phone again and called the precinct.

“Can you put me through to Sgt Koslowski?” She didn’t have long to wait.

“Sgt Koslowsi speaking.”

“Hey Stan, it’s Diane Jolly.”

“Hey, I was gonna call you.”

“About a reporter?”

“Yeah, how did you know?”

“A guy called John Kane? He just called me. Did you give him my number?”

“No way! The guy was here earlier. He left his card for me to give to you. Just hold on, I have it here somewhere.” She heard him moving stuff around. “John Michael Kane, you want his cell phone number?”

“Yeah.” She scribbled it down on the jotter she kept beside the phone. “Does he have an office number on there or an address?”

“Just the name and cell phone.”

“Did he tell you what paper he was working for? Do you remember?”

She heard Koslowski sigh. “Now I think about it, he never mentioned who he worked for. I’m sorry Diane, the guy seemed okay, he didn’t push or nothin’, and I have no idea how he got your home number. He said he was writing an article on the homeless and he started talking about those incident reports the other night, you know, the ones about the Russians?”

“How the hell did he know about those?”

“He didn’t say. Look Diane I-I mentioned the Prof, it… Well it kinda slipped out, but I didn’t give him anything else.”

Diane shook her head. “What did he look like?”

“Kinda ordinary I guess. Young… Well in his thirties I’d say. Nice enough looking, short brown hair, blue eyes, medium height, medium build. He was wearing a long black wool coat, dark scarf, leather gloves, I think maybe dark pants. There was nothing stand out about him. Geez I… I’m sorry Diane.”

“No harm done, Sarge. If he gets back in touch let me know, huh?”

“Sure thing!”

Diane hung up and then stared at the phone a while longer, deep in thought, before going through to the other room and grabbing the phone book. Starting with the New York Times she rang a half dozen newspaper offices, none of them had heard of a John Michael Kane.

~~~~~~~~

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Aren't people just surprising and lovely?  
One of the guys from my garage actually brought the woman's car to my house today, so I could inspect the work they'd done before they phoned her to collect it. Lovely job, you can't tell that I hit it, to quote Dame Vaako "Flawless."  
Then at lunch time I had a lovely surprise, a beautiful bouquet of flowers from four of my friends because they knew I'd not had the best of weeks. I couldn't believe it, what a wonderful, thoughtful thing to do. They really made my day!

<img src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v603/lemonbook/TheGoodSamaritan4.jpg">

Title: The Good Samaritan  
Author: Trisha  
Beta: <lj user=kazlynh>  
Rating: NC17 in places <img src='http://lemonbook.icons.ljtoys.org.uk/mi/dot.gif' border=0 alt=''>

Artwork: Myself and the incredibly talented <lj user=_tayler>  
Summary: Follow on from 'The Bourne Supremacy'  
Feedback:Yes please  
Archive: Moonlight Hotel & Urban Reveries, anywhere else please ask.

<a href="http://www.livejournal.com/tools/memories.bml?user=trishabooms&keyword=The+Good+Samaritan&filter=all">Previous parts here.</a>

<lj-cut text="Chapter 9">

Special thanks to <lj user=ii2none59> for her help with this part.

<b>Chapter 9</b>

A press card could open a lot of doors, give you access to the most surprising places, and Jason Bourne had had one made up in his John Michael Kane identity for some time. A machine at the bus station that printed out business cards had added to his fake I.D., with his name and the number of his newly acquired cell phone printed on the cards.

He handed the press card to the precinct’s desk sergeant, who studied it and him with some interest before handing it back and raising a curious eyebrow at him. “So what can I do for you Mr Kane?”

“I need some help,” he said pleasantly, “and I thought you guys might be the ones to come to. Christmas is coming up and I’m working on a human interest story. We all indulge ourselves at Christmas, right?”

The Sergeant didn’t look too impressed by his pitch so far but he stuck with it. “We spend vast sums on gifts, cards, decorations, food… Did you know that we waste almost as much food as we eat over the holiday period? I want to compare that with the plight of the forgotten members of our society, the city’s homeless.

“I did some research and discovered that this precinct deals with close to the highest percentage of homeless in New York, so I wanted to get your take on the homeless problem, your day to day dealings with these people. Do you have anyone who could spare the time to give me an interview?”

The sergeant remained poker faced as he leafed through what looked like an appointment book. “Might have been better if you’d made an appointment with our press liaison officer.”

Bourne shrugged. “Yeah I know, but a liaison… I mean, I heard there was an incident the other night, a bunch of city types beating up on some homeless guy. Does that kind of thing happen often?”

The sergeant sighed. “Where the hell do you people get hold of this stuff? Look, we get the odd wino causing trouble, reports of petty theft, and sometimes we have to crack down on the begging and the windshield washers, but we don’t get a lot of trouble from the street people.”

He leant down a little, resting his forearms on the desk, and gave Jason another once over. “Off the record?”

He nodded, “Sure.”

“That bunch the other night, they were Russians. Now I ain’t sayin’ I got anything against them personally, but they’re a bunch of crazy bastards. To my way of thinking that beating had more to do with them being Russian than with the guy being homeless. Not that we’re certain that the victim was living on the streets, but it sure sounds that way.”

Bourne nodded. “I hear those guys got chased off anyway, and by one man.”

The desk sergeant smiled. “Yeah, well the homeless around here have their own kinda guardian angel.”

“A what?” Bourne asked, returning the smile.

“The Prof. Can’t say too much, but to my mind if anyone deserves one of those humanitarian awards then it’s him. He’s a damn good man.”

“So who is he?”

The sergeant pulled a face. “I’ve kinda said too much as it is. The guy likes his privacy…”

Bourne nodded his encouragement. “I can appreciate that,” he told him, “but you haven’t said all that much. Is the guy some kind of vigilante?”

“Hell no!” the sergeant laughed. “He’s a man who does what he can for others, you know. That’s his thing. Most of us, we like to pass the homeless by pretty quick, try not to look too hard. We give ‘em some pocket change maybe, but not too much cuz we know they’re just gonna use it to buy booze or drugs, and to some extent that’s true.”

He paused and Jason gave him a nod of understanding, willing him to continue. “The Prof don’t think like that. He could do. He’s not short of a few dollars if you know what I mean, but he tries to help. He buys clothing, blankets, food, and he takes it ‘round personally so he knows it goes just where it’s needed.”

“He sounds like a good man,” Jason told him honestly. “Do you think he came between the homeless guy and this group of Russians the other night?”

“Sounds like something he’d do. Diane’s always warning him…”

“Diane?”

“Fuck!”

“Look,” Jason reassured him, “the last thing I want is to fuck this guy over for a story, but it seems to me that maybe he’s the one I should be interviewing about the homeless situation, not just the people at the local shelter. If there was a way…”

The sergeant looked uncertain. “One of the cops here is a friend.”

“This Diane?”

He nodded. “Diane Jolly.”

“Well maybe I could talk to her? Is she on duty?” At last he had a name, some kind of lead.

“Let me check the rosters.” The sergeant turned his attention to the computer on his desk. “She’s finished for the day, and she’s on a rest day tomorrow, sorry. Damn shame cuz I’m pretty sure she mentioned seeing him tonight.”

“Any chance of you giving me her home number?” It was worth a try.

“Sorry, son, but I can maybe give her a message, ask her to get in touch with you.”

“Hey that’d be great Sgt…” he checked the name tag on the man’s shirt, “Koslowski.”

“Hey, I’m not saying she’s gonna talk to you. More likely she’s gonna chew my ass off for opening my big mouth.”

Jason shrugged. “I’ll take my chances, see what she has to say. Thanks a lot, Sarge.”

The man nodded as he took the business card Jason handed to him.

~~~~~~~~

A quick visit to the homeless shelter and a spot of gentle digging, still in the guise of a journalist, and Jason discovered that the ‘Prof’ was actually a professor of medicine, though in what field, and at which hospital he couldn’t find out. He did however discover that the man lived locally.

It seemed more and more likely to Jason that this Professor had been the one to step in when the homeless man had taken a beating. And from what everyone had said about the Prof, it was becoming clear that he wouldn’t just have left it at that. He would have done all he could to help.

If the man who had taken the thrashing really was Trediakovsky, then it was likely that this Professor knew where he was. The reports all pointed to the man taking a severe beating, not one he’d be likely to walk away from under his own steam; so Bourne was guessing that if he wasn’t in a hospital under an assumed name then the Professor had taken him somewhere safe. The Professor had to be the key to finding the Russian, and the way to trace this Professor had to be through Officer Diane Jolly.

When he’d finished at the shelter he made his way to the nearest internet café for something to eat, a warm drink, and to see what, if anything, he could discover about the policewoman.

Surprisingly there was more than he expected. Diane Jolly was the youngest police woman in New York to receive a commendation, and she had received another since that one.

The two photographs of her that he found accompanied a newspaper article and a press release from the Mayor’s office. Neither was all that good, but even so he was pretty certain he’d be able to pick her out of a crowd. She was Hispanic with dark hair, large dark eyes, incredibly full lips, and high cheekbones. She wasn’t pretty, well not in the usual sense of the word, and she wasn’t what he’d call beautiful, but she was incredibly attractive. Sexy he guessed would be the best way to describe her. Her brief biography from the most recent commendation, eighteen months ago, told him that she had been born and continued to live in New Jersey.

There were surprisingly easy ways for those in the know to track people down, especially government employees. Serving police officers, retirees, the deceased and even those that resigned or were dismissed had their personal details listed on their city’s version of the National Crime Information Center computer. In theory police department personnel rang their local NCIC, gave them their code number, and once it was verified they would give you the information you wanted, but for members of the Security Services there was a back door, a direct access link to all NCIC computer systems provided you had an official access code.

Treadstone had had its own code, and Jason doubted it had been rescinded. Normally he wouldn’t consider finding an address this way. His use of the code would show up at Langley within twenty four hours, but this time… This time the CIA already knew where he was, and what he was doing.

~~~~~~~

Diane Jolly, dressed in a white towelling dressing gown, finished blow drying her hair and stared at herself critically in the full length mirror that stood in the corner of the bedroom.

The Prof had called her yesterday to arrange their monthly dinner. He’d been sweet, all apologies still about their missed lunch, and eager to make it up to her. He’d been so apologetic that she’d let him manipulate her a little, <i>push the boat out a touch</i> was what he’d called it. What that meant was that he was taking her somewhere fancy. She didn’t much like fancy, but she knew he did.

Her room was a mess, littered with clothes she’d tried on and rejected. Her skirts were too short for fancy places; the few dresses she owned were either too clingy or too cheap looking.

She didn’t want to show the Prof up, give anyone the impression that he was the type who went after young women. She wanted them to look kinda father and daughter like, but she didn’t have a clue how to do that, and most of her attempts had made her look like a hooker. She finally settled on black pants, a white shirt blouse, and a short black jacket which, surprise, surprise, made her look like a cop, or maybe a lesbian, though for some reason a hell of a lot of people tended to think those two went hand in hand in her case, even some of her work mates.

Maybe she ought to get out more, find herself some nice guy…

She turned her attention to her hair and pondered which of the small array of styles in her limited repertoire she should choose for tonight: the scrunched up pony tail she laughingly called a French pleat seemed the most likely.

She was interrupted from her contemplation by the phone ringing, and she went over to the bed to answer it, perching on top of a pile of rejected clothing.

“Hello.”

“Hi, could I speak to Diane Jolly?”

She studied her too short fingernails wondering if she should maybe paint them, she was sure she had some polish somewhere…

“You got her.”

“Officer Jolly, my name is John Kane, I’m a journalist. Your name came up in a conversation with Sgt Koslowski earlier…”

“My name?”

“I’m working on a human interest story. It’s an article for The Times Christmas supplement, and I was hoping that you might be able to help me?”

She frowned, not understanding. “Help you how?”

“My article is on the homeless. I understand that you’re a friend of the Professor and… Well I was hoping that I might be able to convince you to speak to him on my behalf, see if he’d give me an interview. I’d be willing to keep his identity a secret.”

“Sorry Mr… Kane was it?”

“Yeah.”

“You must have gotten turned around somewhere man. I don’t know any Professor.”

She hung up and stared at the phone, struck by the feeling that there was something not quite right about the call. She picked up the phone again and called the precinct.

“Can you put me through to Sgt Koslowski?” She didn’t have long to wait.

“Sgt Koslowsi speaking.”

“Hey Stan, it’s Diane Jolly.”

“Hey, I was gonna call you.”

“About a reporter?”

“Yeah, how did you know?”

“A guy called John Kane? He just called me. Did you give him my number?”

“No way! The guy was here earlier. He left his card for me to give to you. Just hold on, I have it here somewhere.” She heard him moving stuff around. “John Michael Kane, you want his cell phone number?”

“Yeah.” She scribbled it down on the jotter she kept beside the phone. “Does he have an office number on there or an address?”

“Just the name and cell phone.”

“Did he tell you what paper he was working for? Do you remember?”

She heard Koslowski sigh. “Now I think about it, he never mentioned who he worked for. I’m sorry Diane, the guy seemed okay, he didn’t push or nothin’, and I have no idea how he got your home number. He said he was writing an article on the homeless and he started talking about those incident reports the other night, you know, the ones about the Russians?”

“How the hell did he know about those?”

“He didn’t say. Look Diane I-I mentioned the Prof, it… Well it kinda slipped out, but I didn’t give him anything else.”

Diane shook her head. “What did he look like?”

“Kinda ordinary I guess. Young… Well in his thirties I’d say. Nice enough looking, short brown hair, blue eyes, medium height, medium build. He was wearing a long black wool coat, dark scarf, leather gloves, I think maybe dark pants. There was nothing stand out about him. Geez I… I’m sorry Diane.”

“No harm done, Sarge. If he gets back in touch let me know, huh?”

“Sure thing!”

Diane hung up and then stared at the phone a while longer, deep in thought, before going through to the other room and grabbing the phone book. Starting with the New York Times she rang a half dozen newspaper offices, none of them had heard of a John Michael Kane.

~~~~~~~~


	10. The Good Samaritan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Follow on from 'The Bourne Supremacy'

**Chapter 10**

David checked his watch as he rode up in the lift to his fourth floor apartment from the garage below. It was only a little after eleven thirty. Diane had come over in her own car from New Jersey tonight, having phoned him earlier to explain she might be a little late, and the two of them had met at the restaurant. As things had worked out she had arrived only a couple of minutes after him.

It had been a pleasant evening, the restaurant was a particular favourite of his, and the food was exceptional. Diane had seemed a little distracted and he wondered, not for the first time, if she wouldn’t be better served with company of her own age. She was such a lovely girl, and strikingly attractive. He’d noticed a young man at the restaurant looking her way a good number of times, though he hadn’t mentioned it to her knowing that his taking an interest in her love life was guaranteed to embarrass her.

He was rather glad in a way that Diane had come in her own car and he’d been able to get home a little earlier. He’d not been at all happy leaving Kirill alone for such a long stretch of time. He had toyed with the idea of phoning to check on him, but had realised that Kirill wouldn’t answer anyway.

He unlocked the door and went inside, pleased to see the hall light had been left on. He locked up, hanging his coat in the closet, and then went to check on Kirill. He gave an inward sigh of relief when he found him asleep in his room. As he went in to turn off the bedside lamp the Russian opened his eyes.

“The meal was good?” he asked, his accent thick with sleep.

David nodded. “Very good, it was a very pleasant evening.”

He smiled and took a seat on the bed for a moment. “How have you been, okay?”

“Mostly sleeping.”

“That won’t do you any harm at all.” David took Kirill’s wrist to check his pulse and saw the young man’s eyes widen.

“ _Ni figa sebe!_ Your hands are cold.”

“Sorry,” he smiled, ignoring the glare the young Russian was giving him. He was starting to get used to those. “Did you take the painkiller I left for you?”

Kirill nodded.

“Good!” He released his wrist, “I’ll let you go back to sleep.”

“ _Spokojnoj nochi._ ”

“What does that mean?” David asked.

“It is Russian for good night.”

David nodded then got to his feet, pulling the bedclothes up around the younger man’s shoulders and turning off the lamp.

“Nos da,” David told him, his smile hidden in the darkened room.

“Nos da?” Kirill asked.

“Good night,” he explained, “In Welsh.” He heard the deep voice chuckle behind him as he left the room, shutting the door.

He checked the rest of the apartment, his nightly ritual, before heading to his own room, more than ready for his bed.

~~~~~~~~

David woke suddenly, opening his eyes just a moment before a large hand came down over his mouth, and his chest constricted in fear.

The voice that spoke to him was extremely quiet, mouth so close to his ear that he could feel, as well as hear, every word.

“There is someone in the apartment,” Kirill told him and David felt the silken touch of the younger man’s long hair against his face. “Do you have a weapon?”

David shook his head. The young man’s hand remained across his mouth, but no longer pressed down to silence him.

Soft breath caressed his ear once more, “Stay here! Make no noise! I will take care of it.”

The hand moved, the large presence hanging over him disappeared, and David heard the soft click of his bedroom door as though it was a crack of thunder in the silence. It was suddenly so quiet he fancied he could hear the pounding of his own heart. He hardly dared to breathe. He knew he had to pull himself together, go after Kirill, if there was someone in the apartment…

The idea terrified David.

Desperately trying not to make a sound he got out of bed, sliding feet into his slippers, aware of the rustle of his dressing gown as he slipped it on over his pyjamas. He couldn’t hear anything other than his own movements, which all seemed desperately loud. He clicked open his bedroom door and listened intently, but he couldn’t hear anything, no intruder, no Kirill. He should be able to hear something, surely, unless…

What if he had dreamt the whole thing?

A creak from the floor seemed to come from the direction of the lounge and David felt his heart rate increase once more as a shiver of fear ran through his body. He padded towards the lounge, his movements achingly slow as he attempted not to make a sound, keep to the rugs. He should have remained barefoot he realised, shouldn’t have bothered with the ridiculous slippers.

Another creak, closer this time, and David let out a shuddering breath, suddenly petrified. The lounge door had been opened, and he could see the light from the streetlamps outside reflecting on the ceiling. He peaked his head around the door but he couldn’t see a thing, there was no movement at all, no sound.

A hand suddenly wrapped around his throat, forcing his head back until it hurt. Cold metal was pressed against the side of his neck, and in a moment of terrifying clarity David realised it was a gun.

The strong, sturdy body behind him propelled him forward. His head was dragged back at such an angle that he could barely breathe, let alone cry out as he stumbled awkwardly into the room.

A light snapped on, and David was blinded by it, as apparently was his captor. There was a thud of impact close to David’s right ear and he found himself released from the strangling grip. He staggered away a step or two, almost collapsing over the back of a nearby armchair where he fought to draw more air into his lungs. He turned fearfully, eyes having grown accustomed to the light and saw Kirill, gun in hand, pointing it steadily at another man whose back was against the wall. The man’s eyes were riveted on Kirill, his right arm oddly limp at his side.

The man looked incredibly familiar and David struggled to work out just where he had seen him before, and then he realised…

“You were in the restaurant!” It was the man he had thought was interested in Diane, the one who had been dining alone.

“David you… You…” Kirill’s face suddenly lost its frown of concentration and David saw his gaze turn wide eyed and slightly glazed. The gun slipped from fingers that no longer seemed able to grip, and his left hand drifted upwards to grasp at something only he could see. Then suddenly he was falling, a tight, strangled cry escaping him as he hit the wooden floor.

~~~~~

Kirill’s body formed a rigid arch on the floor, and then he began to convulse. It brought David out of his stupor and he dropped to his knees beside the young man, wrenching the cushion out of the armchair to place under the Russian’s head. Instinctively, he checked the clock on the mantelpiece so he could time the length of the seizure.

“Move away.”

The voice belonged to the other man, the man from the restaurant, and David looked up at him. His right arm still hung limply at his side, but in his left hand he held the gun. He must have retrieved it from the floor. The dark, ugly weapon, had what David recognised, from countless TV programmes and movies, a silencer attached to it and, as the man walked slowly forward, it remained aimed, unerringly, at Kirill.

“This man is having a seizure. He can’t do you any harm,” David told him, unable to keep the contempt he was feeling from his voice. “Just take what you want and get out will you?”

“I said move away!” The voice was quiet, the man’s unblinking attention focused on Kirill as he stood over them. David watched him bring the gun’s aim down towards Kirill’s head and it suddenly occurred to David that the stranger had no intention of robbing him. This man was going to murder Kirill!

“No! You can’t do this! You can’t just kill a man like this! It’s barbaric!”

“I have no choice.”

“Of _course_ you have a choice, he’s not an animal, and neither are you!”

“You don’t… I…”

The man’s attention wavered, eyes flashing hesitant glances towards David.

“I don’t understand; is that what you’re trying to say?” David asked him, his voice quiet and even. “No, no I don’t. You have presumably followed me here from the restaurant, you’ve broken into my home, and you now intend killing someone in my care, so perhaps I deserve an explanation.”

The hand holding the gun began to shake, and after a moment the man took a slow step back, and then another, gradually lowering the gun. It was only then that his attention truly moved away from Kirill, to gaze at the gun in his hand, his expression unreadable to David.

Then he seemed to make a decision. He walked over to the small table beside the couch and put the weapon down.

David expected him to bolt then, but he didn’t, he came across and crouched beside David, eyes back on Kirill as he rubbed at the shoulder of his immobile right arm.

“Will he be okay?”

Not what David had expected him to say.

David glanced back across, checking the clock once more. “I believe so.”

He turned his attention back to the young man from the restaurant. “There’s a bathroom down the hall and to the right, a large towel would be useful.”

Dark blue eyes came up to focus on David, a hint of surprise in them that wasn’t betrayed by his expression.

“I thought you wanted an explanation.”

“I think, for the moment, that his needs are greater than mine,” David replied, glancing down at Kirill, “Don’t you?”

The young man didn’t answer immediately, but his intense gaze remained fixed on David. “I’ll fetch that towel.”

~~~~~~~

Bourne got up and, leaving the British man with Kirill, he went out into the hallway, turning on the lights. His eyes fastened on the door to the apartment at the end of the hall. His instincts were screaming out to him to leave, to walk out of that door and just keep going.

 _…he’s not an animal, and neither are you…_

Bourne stared long and hard at the door. Killing Trediakovsky wasn’t going to happen: not here; not tonight; and he knew now, not by his hand. Let them send someone else to do the job.

 _Leave,_ instinct screamed at him. _Lose yourself again!_

Yet he found himself turning towards the bathroom and retrieving a large towel.

When he returned to the other room the Russian’s convulsions appeared to have stopped and, as the feeling began to return to his right arm, he helped the older man move him into the recovery position.

“I expected you to walk out,” the Brit told him, using a corner of the towel to clear the spittle from Kirill’s mouth. He glanced up at Bourne, “Why didn’t you?”

Bourne shook his head. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “What’s wrong with him?”

“I’m not sure,” the Brit explained as he carefully but efficiently began to remove the pyjama pants the Russian was wearing, “He refused to go to a hospital, so any diagnosis I make is pretty much guess work.”

As the older man wiped Kirill down with the pants before discarding them, Bourne realised the seizure must have caused him to lose control of his bladder.

“Has this happened before?” he asked as the man covered Kirill with the bath sheet.

“It’s the first time I’ve witnessed a seizure, but I suspect it’s the second one he’s had since he’s been here.”

Pieces finally began to fall into place for Bourne. “You helped him didn’t you, the night he was beaten up?”

There was the first spark of surprise in the old man’s face. “You know about that?” He frowned. “Are you connected to those men?”

“No, I read the police reports. You’re the Professor.”

The man nodded. “David Williams, or did you know that too?”

“They told me your name at the restaurant,” Bourne explained, “I said you looked familiar.”

“Good Lord! And, and you…”

“I followed you home from the restaurant, and then waited for a while.”

“But the building, how did you get into the building, there’s a concierge…”

“Artie’s unconscious at his desk downstairs.”

The new voice startled both men. Jason turned quickly to see Diane Jolly standing in the doorway, service revolver pointing straight at him. “Prof, I need you to get up, and move away from the two of them. Make your way round behind me and use the hall phone to call nine-one-one, okay?”

“The outer door was unlocked,” Bourne told the Professor, quietly, “I just walked in. And I didn’t need to touch the concierge...” He turned his attention to the cop, “He’s not unconscious. The guy’s stoned.”

The cop made a sound that told him she wasn’t impressed.  
“David, do as I ask man! Get yourself over here.”

~~~~~~


	11. The Good Samaritan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Follow on from 'The Bourne Supremacy'

**Chapter 11**

David was about to attempt to explain things to Diane, when a low moan escaped Kirill as he began to come round.

“Gently does it,” David told the young Russian softly, stroking a gentle hand over his shoulder to reassure him, “You’re going to be alright, just lie still.”

“David listen to me! You need to move away from them!”

David glanced up at her. “Not now, Diane.” He moved his gaze to the other man, the one who had broken into the apartment. “My medical bag is in the closet, if you’d be so kind.”

He nodded and started to get to his feet.

“Now, just wait a damn minute!”

David sighed, shaking his head. “Diane, put the gun away, please. Explanations can wait. Right now this man needs help and you’re standing in the way of him getting it.”

She glared at him, her exasperation clear on her face. “I’m a cop! I can’t just let this guy leave! He…”

“He isn’t going anywhere,” David interrupted, calmly. “Now put that away and let him go and get my bag… _Please, Diane_.”

Breathing heavily she slowly lowered the gun, eyes still fixed on the man from the restaurant. “Don’t try anything,” she warned him.

He ignored her, turning to David. “Which closet?”

“Hall, sorry.”

The younger man nodded and got to his feet.

“ _Mne eto ne nrajitsa_!”

David had no idea what the Russian was saying, but it was clear from his tone that he was distressed. “Kirill! It’s David! Everything’s fine, just relax.”

“The fucking Russian?” Diane’s voice became strident, her shock and disappointment in him more than clear from her tone. “Has he been here all the damn time?”

“Keep your voice down!” he urged her, “Now is not the time for this!”

“David?” Kirill was beginning to come around a little more and David noted that the blue, cyanotic tinge to his lips and beneath his eyes was thankfully starting to fade.

“I’m right here, don’t worry. Just take things slowly, you’re going to be fine.”

Kirill was struggling to move out of the recovery position and David helped him to turn over, noting the way that his hand came up to his head. “Do you have another headache, Kirill?”

“ _Da…_ ” He frowned and then started to try and get up. “There is som-something wrong, I…”

David caught his shoulders. “There’s nothing for you to worry about,” he told him, hoping he exuded more confidence than he actually felt. “You do however need to lie down for a little longer.” He guided him back down to the cushion on the floor, “Try and rest.”

It was only then that Kirill noticed Diane and David saw a flicker of fear that seemed out of place in the eyes of a man who had so recently tackled an armed intruder.

“David, who…”

“This is Diane; you remember I told you about her? She decided to pay us a late night visit,” David explained.

“Hey,” Diane managed by way of greeting, the gun blessedly out of sight. She finally moved from her spot in the doorway to come and stand awkwardly beside David. “I was worried, okay?”

David gave her a smile. “You worry too much, and so do you,” he told a clearly anxious Kirill. “Diane is here as my friend, not as a policewoman.”

“Now wait just a minute…”

“I want your word,” David told her softly, “and Kirill needs your reassurance.”

Diane shook her head. “You’re asking too much, man, I can’t just ignore…”

“Your word?” he asked her again, “ _Please_?”

He knew he was asking too much of her, and he would apologise later, but right now he needed this from her to calm Kirill’s growing anxiety. He hoped at least some of that came through in his expression.

She let out a snort of resignation and shook her head, her eyes leaving his and settling on Kirill. “Okay, I promise, no cops.”

“Thank you,” David told her, turning his attention to Kirill once more, gently stroking some of the hair back from his face, “You see? _You_ have nothing to worry about. You can relax now.”

“I-I should…”

“You need to rest,” David coaxed, continuing to stroke his hair, “nothing more. Let everything else go. Just close your eyes for a while, that’s it…”

Kirill’s eyelids were beginning to droop as David continued to reassure him with the comforting words and gentle touches that the young Russian responded to so well. It didn’t take very long for his eyes to close and his breathing to slowly even out as he drifted into sleep.

“It’s okay for him to sleep like that?” The voice of the other man beside David’s ear startled him as his medical bag was placed on the floor.

David gave him a nod. “It’s not unusual. He’ll sleep fairly deeply for a while, and when he wakes up the headache will have gone and he’ll be feeling a good deal better.”

“Will he remember?”

“What happened before the seizure?”

David got a nod in reply. “Probably not...”

“So now he’s out of it, I need some answers,” Diane insisted, “From both of you.”

“Let me check Kirill’s vitals and help me put him to bed. Then we can have our chat,” David conceded. “A stiff drink wouldn’t go amiss either.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Diane had noticed the man dining alone in the restaurant. To be honest she’d been checking him out. He was kinda cute if you went for the clean cut type. It wasn’t until they were more than halfway through dinner that she realised he fit Stan Koslowski’s description of this John Michael Kane guy.

From then on she’d not been able to think about much else. She calmed down when he finished his meal and left the restaurant before they did, putting the whole thing down to paranoia on her part, but the paranoia had come back. She’d driven home, parked up, but hadn’t been able to get out of the car. She’d sat there for god knows how long as the nagging whisper in the back of her mind started to get louder and louder, until eventually it began to shout and scream at her that something was wrong.

Driving over to the Prof’s she’d tried her hardest to convince herself that she was just being stupid, but that voice in her head just wouldn’t fucking shut up!

Finding the outer door to the apartment building open, and Artie slumped unconscious at his desk in the foyer, she’d racing up the stairs to David’s floor. Her heart had almost literally jumped into her mouth when she’d cautiously tried David’s apartment door and found that it too was unlocked.

She’d been scared, and that wasn’t something that happened to her all that often. Terrified when she had found the Prof with not one stranger but two.

Now she was desperate for answers. She had to know what was going on, what the hell this guy wanted, and why her friend had lied to her. She did as the Prof asked, though, helping him and the man she was guessing had to be the one calling himself John Michael Kane, to put the Russian to bed in the spare room.

Finally satisfied that Kirill was settled, David led them back to the living room. He had clearly meant it about the stiff drink, offering them both one, and pouring a large whisky for himself when they refused.

Finally, as the three of them took a seat in the Prof’s lounge, her eyes resting on the intruder, Diane announced, “I’m thinking that you’re the guy who came by the precinct today asking questions, same guy who phoned my place?”

The brown haired man nodded. “I needed to confirm the address I had for you. Your desk sergeant let slip that you’d be seeing the Professor tonight, so I followed you to the restaurant.”

“Then followed the Prof home?”

He nodded again.

“I’m also thinking that your name’s not John Michael Kane, and you’re not a reporter.”

His intense blue eyes met hers. “My name is Jason Bourne, and up until about an hour ago I was working for the CIA.”

Diane couldn’t stop herself from laughing out loud. “You’re bullshitting!”

The Prof, she noticed, had gone as white as a sheet. “Are you telling me,” he asked softly, “that the CIA sent you here to kill Kirill?”

“Kill?” _What the hell had she missed here_ , she wondered. “What are you talking about?”

The Prof’s expression was grim. “Mr Bourne here intended to shoot Kirill. His gun is over there on the table,” he indicated.

Diane pulled out her service revolver. “Okay, you freeze right there!” she told the man Bourne as she got to her feet.

The pistol was just where the Prof said it was, and the fact that it was equipped with a silencer made this whole situation suddenly very real. “This has all gone far enough. I’m calling the precinct right now. You, Bourne, Kane, or whatever the hell your name is, need to keep your hands where I can see ‘em.”

He raised his hands slightly. “Calling the cops is a bad idea…”

“You broke into this man’s apartment, you were armed, I don’t need any more reasons. If by some insane stretch of the imagination you are telling the truth, the CIA get the Russian guy anyways and you go free.”

“You’re not listening,” Bourne told her quietly, “I wasn’t sent here to arrest him. The CIA don’t want him in custody, they want him dead.”

She rolled her eyes. “That’s not going to happen. He’ll be taken into police custody and…”

“Don’t be so naive,” the smile he gave her was sad. “Within two hours of you contacting your precinct, Langley will have removed Kirill from police custody into theirs, never to be seen again. They’ll question the two of you and once they discover that you’re the only ones involved it will be all over.”

Diane shook her head, not liking what he was implying. She lowered her gun. “What are you talking about?”

“Collateral damage: they won’t have time to concoct anything too elaborate so I’m guessing they’d either go for a motor accident, or the suspect, Kirill, freeing himself from custody and fatally shooting the two of you while trying to make his escape. That’s the one I’d choose, all three of you dealt with at once: no loose ends.”

“You would have killed me tonight,” the Prof said quietly.

The man Bourne met his eyes evenly but didn’t reply.

“David,” Diane warned, using the Professor’s real name for once to grab his attention, “You shouldn’t be buying into all this…”

The Prof ignored her. “Who is Kirill?”

“He was FSB; Russian Secret Service, one of their most highly trained assassins.”

“FSB… I heard one of his attackers say that, I didn’t know what it meant,” David admitted. Something else clearly occurred to him, “You said _was_.”

“He was badly injured in a car crash in Moscow, about a year ago.”

“So what’s he doing here?” Diane wanted to know.

“According to the information I was given, an attempt was made on his life in the Moscow hospital…”

“You’re trying to tell us the CIA would attempt something like that?” Diane derided. “The Russian’s would kick up a stink so loud…”

“Not the CIA, Russian Mafia at a guess, but it could have been anyone: police; members of the FSB; there’s a price on his head in Russia.”

“Why?” Diane wanted to know. This all seemed crazy, but this Bourne… She’d seen her share of liars since she’d been a cop, and this guy didn’t strike her as one of them. What he was telling them had a frightening ring of truth to it.

“You’ll have to ask Kirill that.”

“It’s all true, every word, isn’t it?” The Prof voiced what Diane was thinking. “Kirill has told me very little about himself, but the few things that have come to light confirm enough of your story to have me believe you. So, what now?”

“He can’t stay here,” Bourne told them simply. “I tracked him down and someone else will do the same, it’s just a matter of time. You have two days, at most, before they come looking.”

David was shaking his head. “He can’t simply walk out of here.

“Look,” he went on, “I have no idea how, or where he found the strength to disarm you in the way that he did tonight, but I _can_ assure you that _that_ is it! Whatever reserves of energy he had left will be gone. Leaving the seizure aside for a moment, he’s a very poorly young man and he needs care. His ankle is damaged, how badly I don’t know: my knowledge of orthopaedics is fairly limited, but even moving around the apartment is difficult for him. And tonight’s effort… well it can’t have helped. His general health is poor, I’d say he’d been living in fairly appalling conditions for some time, and it’s taken its toll, physically at the very least.”

“What are you a Professor of?” Bourne asked him. “I never did find that out.”

“Neurology; head injuries and seizures are well within my field, but what I can discover is fairly limited without the appropriate tests. Kirill needs assessing properly, in a hospital.”

“He can’t go to a hospital, not here in the US,” Bourne told him, “Even under an assumed name, it would be signing his death warrant. Kirill would know that.”

“Well, as much as he might want to, he’s in no fit state to simply leave!” David countered.

Diane could see the concern etched on David’s face. She understood his compassion, but he was in over his head with this. She holstered her now forgotten gun and took a seat on the arm of the nearby couch before speaking. “Look Prof; David…” She hesitated. “You’ve done all you can, man, more than most would even consider. You’ve given this guy… You just… You can’t help everyone.” She sighed, knowing how bad that must have sounded.

“I see,” he said quietly, “And what would you suggest I do?”

She looked over at Bourne. “If this guy, this Kirill, is gone from here by the time anyone else shows up is David safe?”

Bourne considered for a moment. “If he has a story that stands up and he can stick to it, maybe say that he helped him for a couple of days and then he disappeared…”

“And what happens to Kirill?” David demanded. “What happens to him in all this? Do I give him cab fare and wish him a safe journey?” He glared at Diane.

In all the time she had known him he had never looked at her in that way. It was the first time she had seen him look at _anyone_ in that way.

“What the hell do you want me to say?” she asked him. “This Kirill guy is a stranger, I don’t know him! All I do know is that right now he’s a danger to you, and you’re my friend David! More than that,” she admitted. “You’re the closest thing to a Dad I’ve ever had. I don’t want anything happening to you!”

“I’ll help Kirill,” Bourne said, quietly.

The Professor stared hard at him. “It wasn’t all that long ago that you were pointing a gun to his head. Are you telling me that you’ve had some kind of epiphany, that not only do you no longer want to kill him, you actually want to help him now?”

“I-I… err…” He sighed, then went on, “I had my epiphany a while ago, I just… I thought that maybe I could ignore it, that I could put it aside and let others dictate my actions and that would somehow allow my conscience to be clear. But like you said Kirill’s not an animal, and neither am I. He needs to get out of the country and I can help him.”

David took a drink from his neglected glass, his bright blue eyes fixed on the man, Bourne. “How?” he wanted to know. “Kirill came here in the clothes he stood up in, with a couple of oddments in his pockets. He doesn’t even have a passport.”

“I can get a passport for him, that’s no problem,” Bourne assured him.

“Perhaps not, but leaving him alone whilst you obtain that passport for him may well prove to be.”

“If they drive up to the Canadian border there are places they could cross,” Diane pointed out to the Prof, “he wouldn’t even need a passport.”

“You’re talking about travelling to somewhere extremely remote I would have thought. Driving in this kind of weather, with a passenger who is not only ill but, to all intents and purposes, disabled.”

“What does he need?” Bourne asked. “What do I have to provide for him?”

David put down his glass and leaned forward in his chair. “Kirill needs plenty of rest, and I’m talking real rest, as much sleep as possible, and not snatched in the back seat of a car. His resistance to infection and illness is low, so he needs to be warm and dry. You must ensure that he eats. His appetite is poor so you have to push him, and you’ll need to keep him from becoming dehydrated. He may be able to hobble around the apartment, but he can’t walk very far. If he becomes tense, agitated, or afraid that might well bring on a seizure, so could any number of other things, and if he has a seizure there are numerous risks involved, especially when he’s physically exhausted like this…”

“You’re saying don’t take him.”

“I’m saying that you can’t cope with him on your own. I’m coming with you.”

Bourne shook his head. “No!”

David ran his fingers through his hair, unable to hide his frustration. “Why, because it’s too risky? I’m already in this way over my head, as we’re all well aware, but I’ll be damned if I’m just going to abandon Kirill. He needs my help Mr Bourne, and you know that.”

“The danger involved…” Bourne began, his eyes locked on David’s, then he stopped. “I’m wasting my breath, aren’t I?” He sighed. “If we’re going to do this then we need a plan, and we need to move fast.”

David gave him a smile. “I understand, and I may…”

“No!” Diane was on her feet at once. “Have you gone nuts? You have a life, a career! You can’t just give all that up. You’re talking about going on the run!”

“She’s right,” Bourne told him. “Once you get involved in this there won’t be any turning back…”

“I already am involved. I have to do this!”

He stood up, catching the pacing Diane in his arms and turning her to face him, hands braced on her shoulders. “You have this outrageously rose-tinted opinion of me, one that I truly don’t deserve. I’ve led a hugely selfish life. Everything I’ve ever done has been to my own advantage and the advancement of my career, even marrying Margaret. I’m not saying I didn’t love her, I did in my own way, but I didn’t marry her for love. I married a beautiful woman with a great deal of family wealth and influence behind her. It took the fact that she was dying for me to realise what I had, and how much I’d missed in my neglect of her, and by that time it was too late. Like Mr Bourne here I’ve had my epiphany and, as much as I might want to, I can’t ignore it.”

She shook her head at him, eyes moist with unshed tears, “Then have your epiphany or whatever you want to call it, help the homeless, give away every fucking penny you have, but leave this alone!” she begged him. “This guy, this Kirill, you don’t know anything about him. According to Bourne here, the man’s a killer. All I know for certain is that the two of them are bad news and I don’t want to see you get hurt or in trouble.”

“I know, I know,” David told her gently, moving a stray wisp of hair away from her face, “but I’ve made up my mind.”

~~~~~~~~~


	12. The Good Samaritan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Follow on from 'The Bourne Supremacy'

**Chapter 12**

  
David stood beside the window in Kirill’s room, looking out at the streets below as he drank his coffee. It was close to six in the morning, still dark outside. The three of them; Bourne, Diane, and himself, had been up all night. The snow seemed to have stopped, at least for now, though the forecast for the day didn’t look particularly promising.

It had been a very long night, much of it taken up with him explaining over and over to Diane his reasons for helping Kirill. It had been pointless, he’d eventually realised. She knew his reasons; she simply didn’t want him to leave. For him, however, there was no other choice, not if he wanted to live with his conscience.

The young man, Jason Bourne, had been the voice of reason, of urgency. He was right of course; debating this got them no where. Kirill had to be moved as soon as possible, and they had spent the rest of the night working on a plan. Most of that had been Bourne’s doing. The quietly spoken man was intelligent, decisive, and articulate: quickly assessing the merits and pitfalls of their suggestions, and putting together a plan that hopefully would work for them.

At some point during the night Diane had stopped saying _you_ and had started to say _we_ , and David had felt the guilt well up inside of him. He had wanted her cooperation most certainly, her approval too perhaps, but he had not wanted to see her getting so completely involved. In the light of his own involvement, though, he knew that there was no argument he could give her that she would listen to.

His guilt had driven him here, with his coffee, his stated intention to check on Kirill, and there was a degree of truth in that.

He glanced over to the bed where the focus of all this attention and activity slept, oblivious to what was going on. Fading bruises and healing wounds aside, Kirill looked remarkably young when he slept. It was extremely difficult to imagine this man as a trained assassin, but then Jason Bourne didn’t fit that description either. Perhaps it was a prerequisite of the job _not_ to look the way one might imagine a killer would look.

He stirred a little as David watched, a tight frown forming on his face. His sleep, David had noticed, was often very troubled and disturbed. The dreams he’d witnessed didn’t seem like they’d be those of an assassin, they seemed the dreams of a confused and frightened young man.

David put his cup down and went to sit beside Kirill on the bed, soothing him with the stroke of gentle fingers over the Russian’s furrowed brow. Bad dream or memory, whatever it was that disturbed his sleep seemed to leave him.

David continued to sit with him as he began to wake up. He woke slowly, eyes adjusting to the lamp lit room, blinking as he focused on David. He took his time sitting up.

David gave him a smile. “How are you feeling this morning?” he asked him.

The question was met with a frown of confusion, but Kirill nodded slowly. “I am well.”

His voice was a little hoarse and David handed him a glass of water from the nightstand. “Do you have a headache?”

“ _Niet_.”

He sat up a little more and took a drink before returning the glass to the table. The always-intense frown had deepened. “Is there something wrong?”

“You weren’t very well last night. Can you remember?”

He shook his head slowly, “No, I-I do not remember.”

David patted his hand gently. “That’s okay, don’t worry. What’s the last thing you _do_ remember, before waking up just now? Take your time.”

Kirill’s eyes narrowed in thought, a trace of panic coming into them, “I…”

David saw his breathing rate begin to quicken. “I’m not certain, I…”

“Calmly, _easy_ ,” David told him. “Let’s see if I can help you to remember. Lie back comfortably, keep your breathing slow and even and just listen to my voice.”

Kirill did as he was asked, eyes unfocused on the ceiling, slowing his breathing and visibly beginning to relax. The young man was remarkably good at this. David had first tried this with him when he was nervous over the pen light and had found him extremely receptive, so good that David was certain he must have been taught some kind of relaxation technique before.

“That’s just fine,” David told him. “Now, let’s go back to something you remember clearly from yesterday. I removed your stitches, do you remember that?”

Kirill nodded. “I remember; you told me about your dinner date with, Diane. She is a police woman.”

“That’s right. You got upset, do you remember that?”

“ _Da_.”

“It’s all clear?”

The young man nodded again.

“Very good. Now, move forward a little, not too much, tell me what else you can remember clearly.”

His breathing had evened out completely now, becoming slow and deep, and there was no trace of his earlier uncertainty.

“I remember that you kept changing your tie, you could not decide.”

David laughed. “That’s right. It’s not important, but can you remember which one I chose in the end?”

“It was the blue stripe,” he said, without hesitation.

“It was indeed. Now let’s move on a little further. Can you remember what you did after I left?”

Kirill nodded slowly, his gaze still aimed at the ceiling. “I ate some more of the sandwich and soup that you made for me, and then I started to watch the television.” He gave a slight frown. “I must have fallen asleep watching it, I woke up still tired so I took the painkiller you left and went to bed.”

“Do you remember anything else?”

He shook his head, “No, I…”

“ _Nos da_ ,” David tried.

“Nos da…” He repeated it slowly and David saw his eyes widen slightly. “You, you came in to check on me?” He no longer sounded quite so certain.

“I did. You don’t remember that too clearly?”

He frowned. “It is… vague.”

“That’s okay,” David squeezed his hand, “you’re doing fine.” He kept his fingers resting lightly over Kirill’s pulse. “Is there anything else that you remember?”

He didn’t prompt him this time, just waited as the look of concentration on the young man’s face deepened. “I am not sure, things are confusing, I-I can’t…” his pulse sped up a little.

“That’s okay. Don’t try and force yourself, just rest now.”

Kirill’s dark eyes met David’s. “You knew I would not be able to remember. How did you know?”

“You were unwell last night, as I said,” David explained. “You had a seizure, convulsions. It’s often the case that when people have this type of seizure they can’t remember the events surrounding it.”

Kirill swallowed. “A seizure...”

David took the younger man’s hand in his once more. “I suspect it’s the second you’ve had since you’ve been here. Do you remember when I found you on the floor the other day?”

“I did not fall?”

David shook his head, “I didn’t think so at the time and I’m fairly certain now.”

The young Russian’s face was even paler than usual. “What is wrong with me?” he wanted to know.

“I don’t know,” David admitted, patting Kirill’s hand. “A number of things could be causing the seizures. Possibly they’re a result of the head injury you received in the accident. I can’t say for certain without running tests. What I can tell you is that stress can very often precipitate these attacks, so it’s important that you stay as calm as you can, get plenty of rest.

“Which brings me to last night,” David went on, his eyes fixed on Kirill’s face. “We had an intruder. A man broke into the apartment. You heard him, and somehow you managed to overpower him. It was then that you had the seizure. I thought that the man had broken in to rob me, but he…”

“He came for me.” Kirill made it a statement not a question.

David nodded.

“Where is he now? I have to leave, today. I must…”

“Calm down,” David urged: this was precisely what he didn’t want. “I understand now why you feel you have to leave, I know…”

“What do you know?” Kirill demanded. “What happened?”

He sighed. “The man came here to kill you, but he couldn’t go through with it. You need to speak to him…”

“He is here?”

David nodded. “He says that you know him and he’s offered to help.”

A deathly pallor came over Kirill’s already too pale face. He pulled his hand away from David his whole body trembling as he started to get out bed. “Is-is he Russian?”

“No he’s American. His name is Jason Bourne.”

The fear and distress left the young man’s face in an instant, and to David’s amazement Kirill suddenly began to laugh.

~~~~~~

Jason Bourne looked up as the Professor came back into the room. He’d been using the man’s lap top to check weather forecasts and plan their escape route, between working on a fairly extensive shopping list.

“How is he?”

“He’s okay, a little shell shocked I suspect. He wants to speak to you.”

Jason nodded, “I thought he would.”

“He doesn’t remember what happened last night beyond going to bed after I left, though he may have some confused fragments. Don’t push him to remember. As difficult as it may be, when you consider your reasons for coming here, I want you to try and keep him as calm as possible. If he becomes stressed it may trigger another seizure.”

“You think that’s what caused last night’s?”

“It’s a possibility. I’ll be honest with you, were it not for the fact that Kirill needs your help I wouldn’t want you to have any contact with him at all.”

Jason nodded. “I understand.”

The Professor gave him an awkward smile. “Where’s Diane?”

“She said something about making breakfast.”

“Diane in a kitchen?” the older man raised a surprised eyebrow. “That may prove interesting. I might go and offer my services. If you need me…”

“I’ll yell, don’t worry.” Easier for him to say than for the Professor to do, he realised.

~~~~~~~~

Bourne knocked on the door to Kirill’s room before going inside. He’d expected to find the Russian in bed, but instead found him hobbling out of the en-suite bathroom wearing a pair of jog pants and a T-shirt that was far too large on his thin frame. He reached the bed, sitting down quickly and clearly very gratefully at the foot. He grabbed the sweater that was on the bed and pulled it on before paying Jason any attention.

Bourne hadn’t noticed his limp last night, and he wondered about it now, though he knew from experience that a huge rush of adrenalin could often cancel out the most severe pain, at least for a short while. It was clearly too severe now for Kirill to be able to hide it from him, or he most certainly would have. The Russian looked ill; tired and drawn. His hair was almost shoulder length, clean but untidy looking, his beard and moustache were quite heavy, and his face was marked by cuts, fading bruises, and there was some swelling around one eye. Even so Jason would have known him anywhere.

“You could have finished the job in Moscow,” Kirill’s accent was quite pronounced, his voice deep, though surprisingly soft. “Why here, why now?”

Jason took a seat opposite him on the chair beside the bureau. “I was sent.”

“Sent?” The Russian frowned. “Who sent you?”

“The CIA sanctioned this. They didn’t tell me why, I was hoping you might.”

The frown deepened. “You are sure it was CIA?”

“A woman named Pamela Landy, a task force chief from Langley, she used a personal add to contact me, then offered me a deal.”

Kirill raised an eyebrow. “What was the price?”

“In return for killing you they’d forget all about me. I guess they were pretty certain I’d jump at the chance,” he locked eyes with the other man, “because of Marie.”

There was another frown from the Russian. “Marie?”

“Marie Kreutz,” Bourne couldn’t keep the edge of anger from his voice, anger that Trediakovsky didn’t even know her name. “The woman you killed in India instead of me.”

“I…” he shook his head. “I don’t… India?”

Jason couldn’t hide his surprise. “You’re saying you don’t remember?”

“Tell me.”

“You were sent to India, to Goa, to kill me. You were working for Gretkov, Yuri Gretkov, you remember him?”

Kirill nodded slowly, his eyes fell to his hands and he touched his wrists, the frown coming back to his face. One hand moved up to touch his neck as though he expected something to be there…

 _‘These trinkets… The bracelets, the necklace, you bought them in India?’_

“Kirill?” Bourne questioned

The Russian didn’t reply. He was staring sightlessly at his hands once more, the fingers of his right hand rubbing over his left wrist, a frown of concentration on his face.

 _‘I don’t want Gretkov mauling you anymore. Do you understand?’_

 _‘Yes Nikolai…’_

Kirill’s arms folded over his chest as though he was hugging himself against the cold, and Jason could see a slight tremor in his limbs. He was lost in whatever was going on in his head, and it was nothing good judging by his expression.

Jason was about to go and fetch the Professor when Kirill spoke, his voice barely more than a whisper.

“I-I was in India,” he said slowly, as though this was a revelation to him. “I don’t remember what happened; I just know that I was there. It was on Gretkov’s order?” he wanted to know.

Bourne nodded. “You used a rifle, a distance shot at the car,” he told him, not finding it easy to say the words, “But I wasn’t the one driving, it was Marie Kreutz. We’d been together for two years.”

The Russian’s dark eyes came up to meet Bourne’s. “I don’t remember… I-I am sorry...”

Jason got up and walked over to the window, unable to face the man.

“Why didn’t you kill me last night?” Kirill asked.

Bourne slipped his hands into the pockets of his jeans, still feeling the ache in his right arm from the classic martial arts blow that had paralyzed it last night. “If you hadn’t ambushed me then maybe things would have worked out different,” Bourne tried, though in all honesty he doubted it would have. “Truth is, it’s not what Marie would have wanted. That’s the main reason… That and something the Professor said to me; he said we weren’t animals. He’s right.”

“He has a way with words my Samaritan.”

Despite the thoughts that were going through his head, Bourne had to smile. “That’s what you call him?” It fitted him perfectly, from what Jason had seen and heard from others.

“He is… a good man.”

“Don’t get to meet too many of those in this line of work, do you?”

This time there was amusement in Kirill’s voice, “ _Niet_.”

“Do you remember Moscow?” Bourne asked, turning to look at Kirill once more.

The Russian nodded. “You, the chase, the crash, sometimes in too much detail, but the reasons… I don’t know.”

“According to the CIA’s files Gretkov’s people made a move on you while you were in the Moscow hospital, to stop you from testifying against him.”

“Testifying?” Kirill frowned, rubbing at his temples with his fingertips.

“You retrieved some files from Gretkov in Berlin, set me up for the job…”

“So I came to India to kill you, tie up the loose end?”

Jason nodded. “Are you remembering any of this?”

“Maybe, I-I am uncertain, things are jumbled, I cannot…”

Bourne remembered the warning David had given him not to push Kirill. “Don’t try and force things, just leave it for a while.”

The Russian nodded slowly, his dark eyes never leaving Bourne’s. “So, if you could not kill me why are you still here?”

Jason let out a snort of uncomfortable laughter. “Interesting question,” and one that he wasn’t too sure how to answer. “Because they’ll send someone else, because it’s not just about you anymore, because…” He sighed. “Someone helped me once, when I needed it.”

“And you’re back on the CIA shit list.” Kirill offered.

“That too,” he admitted with a smile.

“How long?”

Jason took his meaning straight away. “I used a restricted access code to hack the NCIC computer, give it twenty four hours for Langley to process and identify it, so that gives us thirty six to forty eight hours tops before they have a surveillance team on this place. We need to get you out of the country. If all goes to plan we leave here tonight.”

“What about…”

They were interrupted by a knock on the door before it opened and the Professor stuck his head around. “There’s breakfast in the kitchen, why don’t you both come and eat?”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  



	13. The Good Samaritan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Follow on from 'The Bourne Supremacy'

**Chapter 13**

  
Kirill had found himself politely but firmly confined to the couch in the lounge as soon as David saw how badly he was limping. The ankle _was_ painful, even more so once his Samaritan had finished prodding it and moving it this way and that. Eventually it was propped up with an ice-pack wrapped around it.

“I’ll get you a painkiller,” David told him. “You need to rest the ankle as much as possible today and hopefully the ice-pack will help take the swelling down. I’ll strap it up for you tonight. That should make things at least a little easier.”

Bourne and the girl joined him in the lounge, the girl bringing him a tray of breakfast. Kirill had no recollection of seeing her before, but there _was_ something vaguely familiar about her.

“You err… You’re looking better than you did last night,” she told him.

He avoided her eyes, feigning interest in the food she’d brought him. He could feel the tension coming off her the moment she entered the room, see it in her body language. It didn’t take long for her to release it.

“The Prof, David, he’s put everything on the line for you man. You’d better be fucking worth it!”

He looked up at her slowly. “I am not worth…” He paused.

What was he worth? Certainly not all of this. “I…” There was no way he could ever repay the kindness of his Samaritan. He stared back down at his plate. “I am worth nothing.”

For an awkward moment she didn’t move, then suddenly she turned away and he heard her sit down heavily on a nearby armchair. He didn’t look up but he could feel her eyes on him.

It was David’s return that broke the heavy silence in the room, his footsteps distinctive on the wooden floor.

“I brought those painkillers,” he told Kirill, “and some fresh orange to wash them down.”

Kirill took both from him, barely looking up to voice his thanks. He swallowed the tablets quickly, drinking down the juice.

“You haven’t touched your breakfast,” David pointed out, and then his voice changed. “Is there something wrong? Something I’ve missed?”

“No.” It was Bourne who spoke up, “We were just waiting on you so we could go over the plan.”

“Oh right!” David pulled up a chair near Kirill and sat down. “Sorry about that. You have my attention.”

Kirill pushed the food aimlessly around his plate. What little appetite he might have had forgotten now. His thoughts were miles away, lingering on what the girl had said. It would have been better if David had left him in that alley, better if he had never come here. Bourne should have finished him off in Moscow. He couldn’t keep living like this, couldn’t continue. He couldn’t remember why he had come to New York or how things had gotten so bad. There were so many gaping holes in his memories, and the harder he tried to remember the more confused he seemed to become. He had no idea why the CIA or this Landy woman wanted him dead; there were just so many questions that he had no answers to.

Leaving with Bourne was a good thing. For his own sake it no longer mattered, but David had done so much for him, and the last thing he wanted was for this good man to be dragged in any further.

“…I noticed a CCTV monitor behind the concierge’s desk. There’s just the one monitor and from what I saw it covered the parking garage. Are there any other cameras anywhere in the building, David?” Bourne was asking as Kirill attempted to tune back into the conversation going on around him.

“Not that I know of.”

“I’ve never seen any,” the girl confirmed.

“Okay, how many cameras are in the parking garage?”

“Erm, I really couldn’t say,” David admitted. “I know the area is covered by CCTV. We had a residents’ letter a year or two ago, but to be honest I can’t say I’ve ever really noticed. Is that a problem?”

“CCTV systems are generally linked to a video so that if there’s some kind of incident they have it on tape. I’m assuming that the night you brought Kirill here you didn’t walk him in through the front doors?”

“No, I brought him here in my car and we took the lift up here from the garage.”

“Then it’s possible that his arrival’s on tape, but it’s highly unlikely unless they’re very security conscious. Most places use the same security tape over and over until they wear out.”

“That’s true,” the girl agreed. “We lose a hell of a lot of convictions that way. There’s an incident, you think it’s gonna be on tape, but when you look at the damn thing it’s worn and the images are so grainy you wouldn’t be able to recognise your own mother on there...”

Close circuit television… Why hadn’t he noticed that when David brought him here? How had he missed something like that, something he’d been trained not to overlook? Kirill put down his fork to rub at his eyes with his fingers. He felt so tired, needed to wake up a little.

“…no time to go through the tapes if they have them. What’s important is that we give them as few clues as possible about just who was here and exactly when we left.”

“What about the camera seeing us leave?” the girl was asking.

“I have a device that will deal with the CCTV system, if it’s placed near one of the cameras. You’ll need to spot them. When you come back this afternoon leave something in the car that you can go down and retrieve later, that’s when you’ll place the device.”

“Once we’ve spotted the camera.”

Bourne nodded at the girl. “I’ll need you to collect my bag, it’s in a luggage locker at Grand Central Station…”

Grand Central Station, there was something about that place. Kirill had been there, he realised. He could picture it perfectly in his mind; see himself walking through it with long, certain, strides. It was so clear to him and yet he couldn’t remember when he was there, why he was there. He knew there was something about it, something he had to remember…

“Something important.”

Whatever it was eluded him. He couldn’t bring it to mind, even though it was close. “So close…”

“Kirill! Kirill! You have to stop it! Let go!” The voice was insistent. “You’re going to re-open the wound on your scalp. You need to stop.”

A hand closed around his wrist in an attempt to restrain his movement and Kirill pulled free, hitting out.

Something crashed to the floor and there was a woman, her voice angry, loud. Everything was noisy, confused and he couldn’t concentrate, couldn’t remember. He tugged at his hair in frustration, heedless of the pain it was causing.

 _“Kirill! Niet! Pozhalujsta, ostanovites!”_

The commands in Russian startled him. _“V chjom delo?”_

Jason Bourne was kneeling beside him, wanting to know what was wrong. Bourne, David, the apartment, he’d forgotten where he was, what was happening. He took a deep breath, concentrated on Bourne’s question, and wondering how he could explain when he wasn’t really sure himself.

 _“Ja nemnogo govorju po-russki,”_ Bourne told him, “so tell me in English.”

“It is… It is something…”

He caught sight of David sat one the floor in the midst of bits of food and broken dishes. He was clutching his stomach, the girl crouched beside him. “David, what..?”

“It’s alright, I’m fine, just a little winded.”

“Winded?”

“He was trying to help you,” the girl glared at him. “What the fuck did you hit him for?”

“Diane, leave it alone,” Bourne told her, not looking at her, his eyes still on Kirill.

“H-he didn’t realise,” his Samaritan was breathless. “I’ll be fine in just a moment.”

“We should have turned him over to the fucking CIA!”

Bourne turned and looked at her. “You’re not helping here so give it a rest. He didn’t know what he was doing, and David told you, he’s fine.”

“No thanks to him!” she snapped, glaring first at Bourne and then back up at Kirill. “The guy’s not playing with a full deck.”

“I did that?” Kirill wanted to know.

“Take it easy. The Professor grabbed your hand to stop you pulling at your hair… Is there a head wound?” he asked David, who nodded in reply.

Bourne turned back to Kirill, explaining, “He startled you and you hit out.”

“I-I am sorry,” he told David. He didn’t know, hadn’t realised what he was doing.

“As I said,” David told him, getting slowly to his feet, with help from the girl, and then flopping into the nearest armchair, “I’m okay. You just knocked the wind out of me.”

  
Bourne didn’t doubt for a moment that the Professor had been badly winded, but he was just as certain that the older man would be black and blue, where Kirill’s punch had caught him, by tonight. The Russian might not be at anything like his full strength, but he was too well trained for that blow not to have hurt like hell. The fact that the Professor was playing the whole thing down only added to Jason’s growing admiration for the man.

He turned his attention back to Kirill, who had wrapped his arms around himself once more, just as he had earlier in the bedroom. Maybe the girl was right, maybe Kirill wasn’t playing with a full deck, but there had been more than enough days since that moment on Nykwana Wombosi’s boat when Jason knew his own grip on sanity had been tenuous, to say the least.

It was clear that something from their earlier conversation had disturbed the Russian, and Bourne wanted to know what it was.

“Kirill, what was it you were trying to remember?”

The younger man’s dark eyes slowly met his. “Remember?”

“While we were talking I heard you say the words ‘something important’, what did you mean, can you remember?”

Trediakovsky shook his head.

“Take it slowly Kirill,” David told him from the couch, “try to relax and think back over what we were saying.”

“I-I cannot, I…”

Jason took David’s lead. “We were talking about knocking out the CCTV system in the parking garage,” he told him patiently, eyes fixed on the Russian’s face for any reaction. “I said that I needed my bag from Grand Central Station…”

That was it! He saw the flicker of recognition before Kirill said anything.

“I- I know it.”

“Grand Central Station, have you been there?”

Trediakovsky was nodding slowly. “ _Da_ , I remember.”

“When were you there, was it recently?”

The Russian’s hand started to go back up into his hair and Jason reached out, caught his wrist and stopped him. Kirill was breathing heavily and Bourne could see, in the eyes that came up to meet his, that he was fighting hard to stay focused and remember.

“ _Niet_ , not recent.”

“Tell me what’s important about Grand Central Station, did you do a job there, were you planning…” The most obvious answer suddenly occurred to him; perhaps Kirill had used the station for the exact same reason he did. “Is it a drop Kirill, did you have a locker there?”

“I remember lockers, walking past them.”

“Did you have the key to one?” If he could get the Russian to somehow remember the number it was possible he might have something stashed there, it was a long shot but sometimes numbers were the simplest things to remember.

“Kirill has keys,” David interrupted. “When he first arrived he was concerned about the things in his pockets, I emptied them before I washed his clothes. Everything I found, including a bunch of keys, is in a bowl on the hall table, let me get them…”

“I’ve seen them, I’ll go,” Diane told the Professor, “You stay put.”

“You might like to fetch my medical bad whist you’re out there,” he told her retreating back.

“Will do.”

When Diane returned she gave the bowl filled with Kirill’s belongings to Jason rather than their owner. It was a petty gesture, and one that was totally lost on its intended target.

Kirill was clearly surprised at seeing these things once more as Bourne handed him the bowl, and Jason watched as the younger man’s long fingers touched each item. Bourne didn’t rush him, he let him look through the odd assortment of items, re-familiarising himself.

Whilst he was doing that, Jason reached into the pocket of his jeans and took out his own locker key.

“If you have a key that looks like this one, with the right serial number, we could be in business.”

“You look.” Kirill handed over a key ring with a bunch of keys on it, which Jason studied with interest.

“Is that a Russian coin?” Diane asked.

“No. It’s a Soviet medal for bravery, from the second World War.” He looked to Kirill for confirmation.

The Russian nodded. “It belonged to my grandfather, won at the battle for Stalingrad.”

Jason raised an eyebrow. “No trouble remembering that?”

Kirill shook his head, clearly surprised himself. “No, I remember him well.”

Jason sorted through the keys, there were at least five that looked like locker keys, and one of them matched his own. He held it up for Kirill to see. “We’ve got a match. Any idea what might be in it?”

He shook his head.

Jason took the key off the ring and handed it and his own to Diane. “Collect what’s in both lockers, just don’t go poking around through whatever you find, okay! We’re not sure what could be in Kirill’s.”

She raised a disturbed eyebrow, “I guess.”

Bourne caught and held Diane’s eyes. “You can still back out you know. You don’t have to help,” he told her quietly.

“I told you last night, I’m in.”

“Then focus on what you’re doing. Flying off the handle won’t get the job done, it just makes it harder.”

She stared at him for a moment, her eyes flicking to Kirill and back again before letting out a sigh. “I hear ya,” she told him, pocketing the keys.

  
As Diane and Jason Bourne finished clearing up the broken dishes, together with the remains of Kirill’s breakfast, David took his bag and pulled the footstool up beside the couch. He’d finally got his breath back, but he could still feel the blow somewhat. He was careful to hide any discomfort from Kirill as he briefly examined him. The younger man could barely meet his eyes as it was.

“I am sorry,” he said very quietly, his voice little above a whisper, “for what I did, for all of this. I should not have involved you.”

David shook his head and smiled. “You have nothing to be sorry for, nothing at all. As far as involving me is concerned, you hardly dragged me into this. I chose to involve myself, and rightly so. I would do the same again. You have no blame to shoulder, no reason to feel guilty.”

David’s words were met by a frown and there was still barely any eye contact. “I…”

“You need some rest,” David told him, “doctor’s orders. You’re physically and mentally exhausted, and you need to recover at least a little of your strength for tonight.” He went into his bag, checking the contents until he found what he was looking for. “I’m going to give you something to help.”

Kirill’s eyes widened at the sight of the hypodermic David had taken from his bag and now proceeded to fill.

“No David, please.”

“It’s just a mild sedative, nothing more. Unfortunately I don’t have it in tablet form. It will help you to relax and get some rest.”

David was surprised to see fear in the dark eyes that fixed on the syringe. “You’ll barely feel a thing,” he told him, “There’s nothing to fear.”

“Don’t! _Please_?” The plea was a quiet one, Kirill’s voice strained and hoarse. It was abundantly clear that this was more than some simple phobia over needles. He knew he’d given Kirill an injection before, but realised that the anti-tetanus shot when he’d first arrived here had been administered when he’d been almost unconscious, so he doubted what was happening had really registered.

David turned to Diane and Bourne who were still clearing up. “Would you mind giving us a few minutes?”

He waited until they’d both left the room before turning back to Kirill. “Do you know why you’re afraid? What is it that frightens you?”

He shook his head. “ _Niet_ , I-I just feel it will be bad, something bad, and I don’t…” He frowned, clearly unable to explain.

“Do you think that something bad might have happened in the past?” David questioned.

“I think… maybe.”

David squeezed his hand. “I think maybe too, but I need you to trust me now, let me help you. Do you think you can do that?”

The nod he got in reply was a hesitant one. It was clear that Kirill was battling his own instincts and was still extremely nervous.

“There’s nothing to fear,” David told him, “nothing at all. Now, I want you to move onto your side a little bit and bare the top of your hip for me.”

He stared hard at David for a moment then did as he was asked.

As David pushed down the joggers a little more he could feel the tremble in the flesh beneath his hand. He swabbed the area before quickly administering the sedative, not wanting to prolong the stress Kirill was under any longer than necessary.

“We’re done,” he told him, pulling the joggers back up. “All that’s going to happen is that you’ll probably start to feel a little drowsy as you relax. Don’t try and fight it, you badly need the rest, okay?”

Kirill nodded as he made himself comfortable once more.

David stood up and retrieved the throw rug from over the back of the couch. He unfolded it carefully to drape over his patient. By the time he’d finished Kirill’s eyelids were already drooping, the tension leaving his body, and his expression losing the fear and confusion that had been so heavily etched there just a few moments before. By the time Jason Bourne put his head around the door, he was sleeping peacefully.

“Will he be up to leaving tonight?” Bourne asked.

“I’m hoping he’ll be feeling a lot better by then. He should sleep for a good few hours. If he wakes up make sure he takes a drink. You might want to apply another ice-pack to that ankle too if it’s not eased a little. Be sure he keeps it elevated as much as possible. You can try him with some food, but don’t push him to eat if he doesn’t want to, not today at least. Rest is what he’s desperate for right now.”

“Is there a chance he’ll have another seizure?”

“There’s always a chance, particularly when he’s stressed like this. Do you know what to do if he has one?”

Jason nodded.

“If it’s particularly long, if he starts to go into another straight away, or if there’s anything you’re uncertain of, you must contact me straight away. Don’t take any chances.”

Jason nodded. “What about you, have you got it clear in your head what you need to do today?”

“I think so. I’d better go and get ready, time is getting on.”

~~~~~~~~

  



	14. The Good Samaritan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Follow on from 'The Bourne Supremacy'

**Chapter 14**

  
“So, are you going to ring this Murrieta guy from the hospital?” Diane asked the Professor as the car headed for New Jersey. He hadn’t had a whole lot to say to her since they left the apartment, and she wondered if he was angry with her because of the Russian.

“Yes, I’ll use one of the pay phones near the main entrance.”

“Do you think he’ll say yes?”

“I’m fairly certain, providing he has no other commitments. He’s a good man.”

“You think that about almost everyone you meet,” the words slipped out before she could stop them.

“And you think the opposite.” There was no censure in his tone; he just said it as though it was a fact.

He was right. “Most of the good men I see in my line of work are called victims.” Diane knew that might sound jaded but it was true, and it was the last thing she wanted the Prof to become.

She heard him sigh. “Diane, I’m not the victim here, Kirill is.”

She frowned. “That guy’s not right in the head, he…”

“No, he isn’t. Far from it, in fact.” Surprisingly her comment had drawn a smile from David, a sad one, but a smile. “He’s ill, and he needs help, that’s what all this is about; not me, not you, but Kirill. Last night I thought you understood that, but this morning… You weren’t helping the situation, you were making things worse.”

“He’s dangerous!”

“He’s a bigger danger to himself than he is to anyone else, I assure you.”

He sighed again. “I’m not asking you to like the man, but if you’re going to help care for him you need to show a little patience. If you’re going along with this simply for my benefit then you need to reconsider, I don’t need you to look after _me_.”

She looked out of the window for a while, blindly staring at the traffic, thinking about what the Professor had said. Deep down she wondered if she wasn’t resenting the Russian. She wasn’t used to sharing David’s attention, and it felt strange, wrong even, that she had to. Maybe that was the problem.

“I admit I might have been kind of testy this morning,” she began.

The Professor chuckled. “Kind of?”

She took a deep breath before she confessed, “I was a bitch… Sometimes the things I’m feeling don’t come out the way they ought to… I’m sorry. Guess I need to learn that in Russian, huh?”

“Perhaps… Just don’t lavish attention on him either,” David told her with a smile, “Kirill may be a little shy around women.”

This time Diane laughed loudly. “Have you ever really looked at the guy, I mean really? He might not be doin’ too good right now, but when he’s okay he must have to beat the women off with a stick.”

“Really? And there was I thinking that it was Jason Bourne you’d taken a shine to.”

To her horror she blushed. “Hey, I haven’t taken a shine, whatever the hell that means, to anyone. I’m just saying, is all!”

David was still smiling. “My mistake.”

“Yeah!”

“So where am I dropping you?”

“My apartment, I need to get my gear.”

~~~~~~~~~

 _He had time to himself, time off. Gretkov had said that he’d contact him in a month’s time and Kirill hadn’t commented, and certainly hadn’t argued. Free time was rare for him, unusual, so much so that he wasn’t sure he knew what to do with so much of it. He wasn’t sure if Gretkov was aware of how much of a reward this was, and he didn’t intend to enlighten him. Maybe he deserved a reward; after all he’d eliminated Jason Bourne, and Bourne was one of the very best. So Kirill said nothing to Gretkov, and turned off his phone._

 _He picked up the girls in a casino a few miles outside of Moscow. It was a place he’d never been before, where no one knew him. The girls were young, both in their early twenties; two petite blonde friends who were looking for a good time, country girls doing their best to hide it. They weren’t exactly virginal the pair of them, but they weren’t hookers either, they just wanted some fun and a taste of the good life._

 _Picking up **two** young girls had little to do with ego. It was something he had done before, and it worked for him because there were fewer complications, no involvement, and no pretence. The three of them could have a little fun and no one would get too serious._

 _It had been a good night at the casino. Kirill won a comfortable amount at the roulette table as the two girls looked on, so he declared them his good luck charms, bought them dinner, and watched them both get pleasantly drunk on cheap champagne. The alcohol washed away most of their inhibitions and he encouraged the two of them to become a little bolder, a little more suggestive, so that the threesome seemed like their idea. Kirill himself had drunk a little vodka; not too much. He craved sexual release, not oblivion._

 _He’d driven the three of them back into Moscow to his apartment, a little surprised that neither girl had been to the city before. His apartment impressed them._

 _There were times when it impressed him too, when he compared it to the house he had shared with his mother and his grandparents when he was young, but that had been a home, and this was simply a place. It was a place to sleep, a place where he kept his clothes, but there was little of him in it, few personal items. The few things that had any meaning to him could be kept in his pocket. The apartment had be chosen for him, furnished for him, even the collection of CD’s the girls were so interested in had been bought for him, placed there for his use. He used to think that he wanted all of this, that it was important, but in those days he had been unaware of the price._

 _The girls were enjoying themselves, giggling as they looked through the music, choosing what they wanted to listen to. Kirill poured himself a glass of vodka and watched them._

 _The youngest of the two, neither of whom had names he could bring to mind, noticed him watching them and got up from the floor, dancing her way over to where he stood._

 _“You should make yourself more comfortable,” she told him, laughing._

 _He raised an eyebrow. “And how should I do that?”_

 _“You could take off your jacket. That would be a start. I could help you.”_

 _He smiled. “I was hoping you might.”_

 _She took the vodka from his hand and drank down what was left in the glass, unable to hide a grimace at the bitter taste of the alcohol. She had a very young face this girl, elfin and pretty, with bright blue eyes that sparkled with mischief. She eased the jacket off his shoulders and as he shrugged it down she took it off him. Her hand stroked over the fabric, lingering for a moment before she laid it over the arm of the nearby couch._

 _She danced her way back, moving in close and rubbing up against him. He settled his hand on the small of her back, on the purple skirt that was so short it barely concealed her pert ass, and danced with her, leaning down to taste the soft skin on her neck and explore her ears with lips, tongue, and the occasional, very gentle, scrape of his teeth._

 _When he glanced up he noticed the other girl, still sitting on the floor near the CD player, watching them, and he gave her a wink, crooking a finger to beckon her over before turning his attention back to the younger girl, finding her lips with his. Her kisses were eager and hungry, and as they kissed he felt her hands move beneath the fabric of his shirt. He returned the favour, slipping one hand beneath her skirt and exploring, whilst the other found the button and zip, unfastening one then the other before he used both hands to push the skirt down. All she wore beneath it was a lacy thong, and he skimmed over her soft flesh with his fingertips before tracing the line of the thong to the front and slipping his fingers beneath the small triangle of fabric._

 _She parted her legs eagerly at his touch. He stroked the delicate lips of her labia, teasing her slowly before he eased a finger into that warm moist place, finding the spot he was looking for and she moaned into their kiss._

 _There was a touch on his arm and he broke the kiss to find the other girl standing beside them, her smile a little uncertain. He smiled back slipping his free hand around her neck and drawing her closer so that he could kiss her. Of the two she had been the liveliest at the casino, but now she was cautious, less certain. He kept his kiss undemanding, moving his hand from the nape of her neck to stroke her face and hair with his fingers._

 _“So pretty,” he told her, breaking the kiss and capturing her eyes with his before lightly kissing her friend. “Both so pretty.”_

 _He had never stopped teasing the younger girl and she was close to orgasm. Her eyes were closed and she was breathing raggedly through lush, kiss-swollen lips._

 _“Are you going to cum for me now?” he asked her, “Show your friend how good it feels?”_

 _“Yes,” she nodded, panting, “I want to.”_

 _He released the older girl and pulled the younger one close, turning her until her back was to him and she was facing her friend. The two fingers that were still inside of her, and had patiently teased and coaxed, he suddenly plunged home and he felt her shudder and spread her legs wider, opening herself up to his fingers as he pounded mercilessly into her. His other hand slipped beneath the hem of the strappy top she wore, giving him access to her small, tight breasts. He kneaded them pinching the nipples as she writhed in his arms._

 _“Open your eyes,” he whispered, before tracing over the shell of her ear with his tongue. “Open them and look at your friend.”_

 _She was so close, panting heavily and grinding her buttocks into him, causing his already aching erection to tent his pants uncomfortably. She cried out when she came, her orgasm a flood of warm moisture over his fingers. He held her tightly against him enjoying the shakes and trembles that went through her body as he tenderly kissed her neck and shoulders, waiting until she regained control, pleased when she turned in his arms and kissed him._

 _“Sofia’s turn,” she told him, breaking the kiss with a grin and moving out of his arms._

 _Kirill held out a hand to her friend Sofia, smiling when she moved eagerly into his embrace._

 _This time when he kissed her she was more confident, and to his surprise he felt her hands move between them. Slowly, she began to unfasten the buttons of his shirt._

 _“I thought you were shy,” he told her as she parted his shirt and ran her palms over his abs and chest._

 _She nodded, her smile a picture of innocence. “I am.”_

 _He laughed, and taking the hem of her top in both hands, he looked into her eyes, arching a brow to ask her permission. One nod and he pulled the top off, over the arms she’d raised to help him. It landed on the floor somewhere with her friend’s skirt._

 _“Beautiful,” he told her, admiring the surprisingly large, firm breasts. He cupped them both, rubbing his thumbs over the pert nipples. Tired of bending to the two, petite girls he grabbed her around the waist and lifted her. She wrapped her legs around him._

 _He wanted both girls in his bed, wanted to lose himself inside them, but first he had to taste those ripe looking breasts. He moved over to the wall, pressing her back against it as he dipped his head to her breasts and began circling a dark pink nipple, tracing the puckered aureole with his tongue._

 _He sensed movement just a moment before the other girl pressed against his back. Her arms snaked around him, one hand trailing over his erection as the other began working on his belt._

 _He kissed Sofia’s nipple then parted his lips, started to suckle gently…_

 _  
**The doorbell.**   
_

_The sound stopped him, suddenly and completely, cooling his ardour like a cold shower. He moved away from the wall, pushed the girls legs down firmly, but gently to the floor, before removing the other girls hands from the front of his pants._

 _“Stop!”_

 _“Ignore it,” the younger girl told him, “whoever it is will go away.”_

 _It was after 3am, no one made social calls at this time in the morning._

 _“Stay here!” he told them before leaving the room._

 _Kirill strode purposely down the hallway not making any sound. He opened the drawer in the small table that stood beside the door, pulling out the automatic pistol he kept there, instinctively checking the clip and chambered round before looking through the peephole._

 _His caller’s back was to the door, but even so there was no mistaking the figure. He unlocked the door, slipping off the bolt and chain before holding it open in invitation._

 _“Your phone is off the hook,” Nikolai told him as he swept into the apartment, one of his men accompanying him, two more remaining outside as Kirill closed the door. “I require an explanation.”_

 _He returned the gun to the drawer before following his Colonel down the hallway and into the sitting room, schooling his features to keep the wave of anxiety that washed over him, in check._

 _Nikolai had come to a halt just inside the room. His gaze raked across the girls before he turned to lock eyes with Kirill. He smiled, slowly; eyes alight, though Kirill knew it was not with amusement._

 _“I see I’m interrupting something,” Nikolai told him as he removed his leather gloves._

 _Kirill shook his head quickly. “Not interrupting.”_

 _He moved past Nikolai towards the half naked girls. “Get dressed,” he instructed, “it’s time to leave.” He reached into the back pocket of his trousers, taking out his wallet. “Taxi fare,” he told them, pulling out a generous wad of bills and willing them to start dressing and leave without a fuss, “And your share of the winnings.”_

 _“A taxi, at this hour,” Nikolai cut in, “I won’t hear of it.” He turned on the charm, eyes soft, his tone deceptively warm. “You don’t invite two such delightful young ladies back to your apartment and then send them out to find a taxi. Where are your manners my dear Kirill? You haven’t even introduced us.”_

 _“I… Sofia, and…”_

 _“Irina,” the youngest offered._

 _“Irina,” he repeated, “this is…”_

 _“Nikolai,” the Colonel finished for him, and as soon as he said the name Kirill knew the girls’ fates were sealed._

 _“I am sorry,” Kirill apologised to the girls, both of whom were dressing. The apology was more heartfelt than either girl would ever know. Their fates pricked his conscience._

 _“So you should be.” His Colonel’s dark eyes rested on him, their message clear. “The young ladies will be driven home, or wherever they wish to go, in my car whilst we have our meeting. Give them their winnings.”_

 _He handed the money over to the younger girl, Irina, who had already slipped on her skirt. She was smiling at him but Sofia looked less certain of the situation as she hastily slipped on her top._

 _“Shame,” Irina told him, “but maybe some other time, huh, if you’re at the casino?”_

 _Kirill nodded. “Maybe.”_

 _“I apologise for ruining your evening,” Nikolai told them both, “but my business with Kirill is urgent, and regrettably I’ve been unable to contact him until now…”_

 _“We can call a taxi,” Sofia cut in. “You don’t have to worry about us.”_

 _“I won’t hear of it,” Nikolai assured her. He turned to the man who had accompanied him inside. “Escort the young ladies to the car and ensure the driver knows to take good care of them. You’ll wait outside until our business here is concluded.”_

 _“Yes, Colonel.”_

 _Kirill didn’t watch the girls go. He crossed the room and found his glass, abandoned by Irina earlier, refilling it with vodka. He knew Nikolai was watching him, knew he wouldn’t like him drinking it. He ran his thumb and middle finger down either side of the glass, willing himself to pick it up and drink it down, wanting just for once to show some measure of defiance. Most of all he wanted to erase the names of the girls, their faces, from his memory._

 _“What were the girls for?” Nikolai asked him, his voice honeyed and quiet._

 _“Release,” he admitted, not turning around. “Just release…”_

 _“I can understand that, really I can,” Nikolai stated, “but this is a little…sordid. I’m not sure that I approve.”_

 _Kirill nodded, swallowing. “I’m sorry.” His hand left the glass._

 _“I know you are.” The voice came from directly behind him now. “Turn around.”_

 _He did as he was told, head down, not wanting to meet the dark eyes he knew were waiting for him._

 _“Have you done this before?”_

 _Kirill nodded. “Once or twice.”_

 _Fingers moved beneath his chin, raised his head until he met the smiling eyes, eyes that he dare not look away from now._

 _“How many Kirill?” The patient tone surprised and disturbed him._

 _“Four times,” he confessed, “Different girls from different places.”_

 _“That’s better.” Nikolai released his chin. “Go and shower, I dislike their stink on you.” He turned away, started to remove his outer clothing. “I trust you have some tea?”_

 _Kirill gave a stiff nod. “Yes Nikolai.”_

~~~~~~~~~~~

Rapid eye movement; Kirill was dreaming. Bourne had paused in his wiping down of the apartment to check on him. The job of removing any evidence of either he or the Russian ever being here was laborious and time consuming, but in Jason’s opinion it was worth the effort. Once Kirill woke up he’d wear surgical gloves, as Bourne was already doing, in an effort to prevent them from leaving any more prints.

Bourne knew he wouldn’t erase every print or remove every piece of evidence, but he could make things so much more difficult for their pursuers, and hopefully buy them more time, which is what they desperately needed.

He gazed down on the sleeping man.

His feelings about Trediakovsky were deeply mixed, and that disturbed him. There was a part of him that wanted to take out his gun and shoot the man where he slept, punish him for taking away the one good thing he’d had in his life, but there was another part that looked at Kirill and saw a reflection of himself that was far too close to be comfortable. It was easy to look at the Russian and see Marie’s murderer, but the reality was that Kirill was merely a tool, a weapon wielded by others, just as he himself had been by wielded by Treadstone.

What was _he_ if not a murderer to the daughter of Vladimir Neski and his wife?

~~~~~~~~~~~

 _He showered because he’d been told to, and if the truth were known he was grateful for the command. It gave him time, the opportunity to get his head together and push all thoughts of the girls to the back of his mind in the hope they’d stay there. It paid to be clear headed when Nikolai was around._

 _He towelled off quickly, wrapping another towel around his hips before moving over to the wash basin. He wiped the steam from the mirror and studied his reflection, meeting his own eyes and searching for any sign of the near panic that gripped his guts, the cold sweat that threatened with each passing minute. He closed his eyes, cutting off the image of the coward he saw reflected there, and did the breathing exercises he’d been taught to calm his nerves._

 _Visits from Nikolai were nothing new; there could be two in a week and then none for a month or more, there was no regular order to them, no predictable length. Sometimes he would stay a mere hour, at other times a night, or an entire weekend. He knew how to cope with them, all he had to do was obey, please his Colonel. That was all it took to get through this._

 _He realised that he was gripping tightly onto the sides of the basin and released it quickly, shaking out the tremor in his hands before letting his arms hang loose at his sides. A few more slow even breaths and he opened his eyes._

 _He looked and felt better: not perfect, but better._

 _Finding Nikolai sitting on his bed when he left the bathroom threw him a little. He’d clearly been there a while. He’d removed his jacket and tie, unfastened the top few buttons of his shirt, carefully folded back the cuffs, and his feet were bare. He was finishing his tea as Kirill entered the room, fastidiously placing his cup and saucer on the bedside cabinet before focusing his full attention on Kirill._

 _He was a neat man. It was one of the first things he had noticed about his Colonel. His appearance, the way he dressed, even the way he moved, all were very neat and precise, carefully considered._

 _His mind was like that too; well ordered and considered, but it was also very fast, very sharp. These were skills he’d tried to teach Kirill and to a point he’d succeeded. Kirill knew he was a good field agent, that his work pleased Nikolai._

 _“Take off the towel.”_

 _Kirill did as he was asked, standing still and silent, almost at attention, his gaze focused on the wall opposite as he submitted to Nikolai’s scrutiny,._

 _“Turn around.”_

 _Kirill kept the action slow and deliberate, though he was less comfortable turning his back on the man. He tried not to let that show, but he waited for the quiet chuckle that would announce that his Colonel was aware of his discomfort and amused by it._

 _“And again.”_

 _Kirill turned back to face front._

 _“You’ve lost a little weight since our last meeting. Don’t lose any more.”_

 _Kirill risked a glance at Nikolai, giving him a nod of compliance. He had India to blame for the weight loss. He’d been in the country no more than forty eight hours, had eaten perhaps two meals there, but within hours of arriving back in Moscow and meeting Gretkov at the airport he’d been fighting off stomach cramps and fever, endlessly puking his guts up until the bug he’d picked up had worked its way through his system. He didn’t share the details with Nikolai, there was no need._

 _“Now, tell me why your phone is switched off.”_

 _“Gretkov gave me a month off.”_

 _“And you didn’t want him to change his mind,” Nikolai laughed. “I can understand that too, though again, I don’t know if I approve. Should I punish you, Kirill?”_

 _A deep frown furrowed his brow. He hated questions like this where there was no right answer. It made him nervous, almost as much as when Nikolai was in this pleasant mood and he had no clue what to expect._

 _“I don’t know,” he admitted._

 _“Don’t know?” The Colonel arched a curious eyebrow._

 _“I-I don’t want you to,” Kirill told him slowly, “but that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t.” Honesty was usually the best policy with Nikolai. He picked up on lies far too easily._

 _“Well said, my boy.” The answer earned him a smile. “You must have pleased Yuri for him to give you time off. He’s not the most generous of men, despite his wealth. Your time on loan to him has been a success, I take it?”_

 _“I’ve done all he asked of me, as you said I should.”_

 _“I know. I’ve spoken to him. Has he had you? He wasn’t quite so forthcoming in that particular area.”_

 _“You said I sh…”_

 _“Answer the question! I don’t need you to remind me of what I’ve said.”_

 _“Yes, he has.”_

 _“Here?”_

 _Kirill shook his head. “No.”_

 _“Where then?” There was a flash of irritation at the one word answer and Kirill knew he had to do better if he wanted to avoid Nikolai’s temper._

 _“His office mostly, an apartment; his I think, and my hotel room at the airport in Berlin, between flights. He asked as you said he would, he told me that you would expect it of me, that the two of you were good friends.”_

 _“Arrogant little worm. Tell me about it. Did you enjoy it any of those times? Tell me the truth, not what you think I want to hear.”_

 _“No,” Kirill confessed, tamping down the discomfort he felt, both at the act he’d been instructed to perform, and at being forced to recount the details for Nikolai. Kirill didn’t like Gretkov, hated the fact that he’d been forced to let the man fuck him. “Gretkov gets off on a quick, rough fuck, nothing else.”_

 _Nikolai nodded. “Did he make you come?”_

 _Kirill tried to hide his discomfort at the question. “Most times, no. It’s always been brief, against a wall, over his desk, against the sink in Berlin…”_

 _“Does he have you undress?”_

 _Kirill shook his head. “Just pants down. He doesn’t undress.”_

 _“Yuri has always lacked imagination.” Nikolai got to his feet and moved to stand in front of Kirill. He ran the backs of his fingers lightly over his cheek, ending at his chin. “I cannot envisage anyone having you and not taking advantage of that beautiful mouth at least once. You’ve done well…” The dark eyes for once were deadly serious. “Now it’s time to do better. On your knees.”_

~~~~~~~~~~


	15. The Good Samaritan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Follow on from 'The Bourne Supremacy'

**Chapter 15**

  
Diane took a last look around her apartment before she slipped the strap of her large, battered, brown leather sports bag over her shoulder, picked up her purse, and walked out the door, locking it behind her. Though the bag was heavy there were surprisingly few things that she’d felt compelled to take with her. There was nothing that she felt she couldn’t live without. In the end it was all just stuff.

It occurred to her that she might never return here, but she didn’t feel tied to the place. She had chosen the apartment because she knew the area. It was where she’d grown up, but that was as far as any sentiment went.

She would miss only two things when she left; her Mom and her job, nothing else had ever really mattered all that much.

Bourne had warned her not to make any goodbyes, and she got that. She would have liked to have seen her Mom, explain what she was doing and why, but right now she was having a hard enough time dealing with that herself. She knew her Mom would never understand.

There was only one person she needed to explain any of this to, for more reasons than she was truly comfortable with, but sometimes things just had to be done… and this was well overdue.

Her destination was four blocks away from her apartment and, by the time she’d walked there through the snow laden streets, the bag felt way too heavy on her shoulder.

She slowed as she reached the entrance and gazed up at the large sign above the lot - ‘Benny’s Sales and Rentals’.

Their whole escape-plan hinged on what happened next.

When she’d thought it out and spoken about it to the others, things had seemed so straight forward. She hadn’t shared all the details with the Prof and Bourne… To be honest she’d been more than economical with the truth, but now she wasn’t sure that had been one of her best ideas.

 _Fuck it_! She knew she could do this, and if she didn’t do it now…

She hoisted the bag a little higher on her shoulder, and put that beat-cop confidence back in her walk as she made her way toward the showroom in the middle of the lot.

She didn’t come here very often these days, and she couldn’t help but be impressed by how upmarket the place had become. A couple of the guys in the showroom looked familiar to her, in fact she was sure she’d arrested one of them a couple of months back. She kept her head down and thankfully no one came up to try and sell her anything.

She took a glance around the showroom at the mass of gleaming vehicles before making her way up the central staircase to the main office above.

Benny was in. He was sitting at his desk, talking to some woman who was brandishing a notepad, his secretary at a guess. Diane remembered Benny’s secretaries from when she used to come here as a kid. There was a new one almost every visit, blondes mostly. This woman looked nothing like they used to. Her dress was smart and business like, and while she wasn’t exactly ugly she was no blonde bimbo either. Times certainly seemed to have changed.

She saw Benny glance up and notice her, saw the smile of pleasure on his face and wished he hadn’t been so pleased to see her. She watched him dismiss his secretary.

Diane paused in the outer office and the woman came out to meet her.

“He says to go right in honey.”

Diane nodded, but had to pause, take a breath, collect herself.

“Thanks,” she told the woman, before pushing the connecting door open and walking inside.

He was in his shirt sleeves: nice, white shirt, too-loud tie. His dark suit jacket hung over the back of his plush leather office chair. The last time she’d seen him had been at her Mom’s birthday five months ago. He’d never really changed much, not even from when she was a kid. He had a little more weight on him, but it was just padding. His face looked a bit more lived in, and there was a smattering of grey in the almost black hair, with the curls he still couldn’t quite tame, even though he was receding just a little.

He leaned well back in the chair, hands clasped behind his head, and grinned at her, eyes looking her up and down.

“Hey, there!”

She put down her bags with relief. “Hey, Benny.”

He raised an eyebrow. “What happened to Uncle Benny?”

“You’re not my uncle and I ain’t six, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

“Nope, you’re all grown up and feistier than ever,” he laughed. “So, to what do I owe this honour? You haven’t been here for…” He paused, a look of concern suddenly wiping the smile from his face. “There’s nothing wrong with your Mom is there?”

“No, she’s fine….”

“So why are you here?” he asked. “You stopped making social calls quite a while ago.”

“Yeah, well, being a cop and making social calls on a notorious felon…”

“Notorious _suspected_ felon.” His smile was back.

“Whatever. The two don’t go together. You and me; we don’t go together.”

He frowned. “Why are you here Diane?” he asked again.

She paused, looked over her shoulder at the secretary working in the outer office. “Can she hear what we’re saying?”

“She couldn’t hear you if you screamed. The room’s sound-proofed. I even have it regularly swept for bugs, can’t trust the fucking cops these days!”

Diane resisted the sarcastic comeback. “I need a favour, a couple of favours, and I figure you maybe owe me enough to do ‘em, no questions asked.”

His eyes raked over her again, taking in the bags she’d put down on the floor.

“Sit down…”

“I’m fine standing.”

“You sit down,” he told her, pointing to the chair, “and you tell me just why you think I owe you.”

This was hard, harder than she thought it would be, and she found herself wanting to walk back out the door, forget the whole thing… but she couldn’t. Instead she reluctantly took the offered chair.

“So?” he prompted.

She looked up at him, meeting the surprisingly green eyes. “I _know_ ,” she said quietly, having to fight to keep her voice steady. “I’ve known for years.”

He didn’t speak or react, and she couldn’t tell from his expression just what was going through his mind.

“I was maybe ten years old the night I found out,” she went on. “It was late and I woke up when I heard voices in the apartment. I recognised yours and I wanted to get up, to see you. Then I heard Mom and she was upset, shouting at you. The two of you must have forgotten I was even there because it all came out.”

“Till that moment,” she told him, “you were pretty much my hero, but after it, it was never the same, and I came to realise what a bastard you really are, _Dad_.”

His face was pale and to her surprise his eyes had filled. “Your Mom…” He swallowed, “She never said…”

“I never told her that I knew and I don’t have any plans to.”

“Things were complicated at the time, Diane,” he tried, “I wanted to…”

“Oh, no!” She shook her head. “Last thing I want to hear are your excuses.”

“Well, dammit, you’re going to listen!” He sat up in the chair. “Not telling you was never my idea but…” he sighed, “I know why your mother insisted.

“She looked a lot like you when she was younger… a little softer maybe; but there’s a lot of me in you. I always liked your Mom, even when we were kids. She was special, still is. I was never gonna be anything other than what I am, I always knew that. I had ambition, but it never included being an ordinary guy with a nine-to-five job. I was boosting cars way before I was old enough to drive one.

“I was never the kind of guy your Mom should have been with, but I liked her, and I’d always known she was stuck on me. Your grandparents, they were strict with her. She didn’t get out much, do things other kids her age did, didn’t have many friends in the neighbourhood. They did it ‘cause they wanted better for her, but she was lonely. She didn’t always do what they said. Sometimes I could convince her to sneak off with me and we’d go out somewhere. She loved dancing.

“I was Carla’s first. It should never have happened between us, but it did, and it was my fault. I shouldn’t have let it. When she found out she was pregnant she thought your grandparents would disown her. She was so ashamed. They did the opposite though, they took over her life. I couldn’t see her, no one did, and I didn’t see you when you were first born. There was talk of you all moving away, but then your Grandpa died and your Grandmother went to pieces. Your Mom was left looking after her… and you.

“She wouldn’t give me time of day. Blamed me I guess, maybe with reason.”

His gaze had drifted as he spoke, but he focused on her once more. “She lost your Grandmother about a year after and she finally let me help her. We came to an agreement. It wasn’t what I wanted, and I don’t think it was what your Mom really wanted, but she was carrying around a lot of guilt that she shouldn’t have been. Maybe I should have proposed, but being Benny Borghese’s wife was never gonna be the right thing for your Mom, or for you, and being the bastard that I am I never had any intention of changing.”

He stretched. “Today things might have been different, but back then…”

“So, you’re blaming…”

“I’m not blaming any one person,” he countered, “what’s the point? We all messed up, and we’ve all paid for it. You shouldn’t have though; none of this was your fault.”

He shook his head. “We should have told you, made things right. Do you want me to speak to your Mom, tell her that you know?”

Diane shook her head. “No,” she told him. “She did what she thought was right, and at least I understand why now, huh?”

She studied Benny cautiously. “That was the truth right? You’ve not been feeding me some kind of line?”

He rolled his eyes. “Why the hell would I?”

“That’s what I thought.” She let out a deep shuddering breath that she felt like she’d been holding her entire life, well most of it at any rate. “I’d like to be able to call you Dad, but I just can’t… You know?”

She saw the flinch in his eyes and knew her remark had slapped him in the face. The silence that hung between them afterwards was a long one.

Benny broke it.

“So, now we both know what we know, are you gonna tell me what this favour… these couple of favours,” he corrected himself, “are that you want from me?”

She pointed in the direction of the showroom. “I want an RV,” she told him.

The laughter boomed out of Benny. “You’re fucking kidding me! That’s it?”

She shook her head. “No.”

She waited for his laughter to subside. “I want a class ‘A’ RV, a big one that’ll sleep six. It has to be a good one; reliable and comfortable.” She reached into the pocket of her jacket and pulled out the driving license Jason Bourne had given her. “I want to drive away in it this morning with it registered to this guy.” She pushed the licence to Benny across the desk, “and I want insurance cover in his name and mine.”

He didn’t move to take it, he just glanced at it. “Who the hell is he?”

“Just someone I know.”

He shook his head. “You’re gonna have to give me a damn sight more than that!”

“You don’t need to know.”

His fist came down on the desk, hard. “Yes I fucking do! We just had the conversation Diane, I’m your father and, whether you choose to believe it or not, I’ve always fucking cared!”

To her surprise Diane realised that she believed him. “He’s just a friend.”

“Boyfriend?”

She shook her head. “No, I don’t have a boyfriend.” She shrugged. “I keep looking but… I don’t have much luck with guys,” she admitted.

“Your Mom hoped you might date a cop… Not my choice but…”

She laughed at the lame joke. “I think she’s just hoping I’ll date someone.”

He nodded, “Maybe.”

He gave a sigh. “You’re asking a lot here. It’s not the money, it’s just… You need to give me more than this Diane, please. Are you in some kind of trouble?”

“No, not me, but I have a friend who is and I need to help him,” she confessed.

“This guy?” He picked up the licence.

“No, he’s helping too.”

“You’re a cop! How much more help can the guy need?”

She stared hard at him. “There’s no help I can give him as a cop. I can’t involve them in this, they can’t know anything. Why else would I come to you?”

“So he’s on the run this friend of yours…” He pointed at the bag on the floor, “and you’re going too.” He shook his head. “Diane you… Have you thought this out?”

“From every angle,” she assured him. “It’s going to happen. It’s just going to happen a whole lot easier if you help me.”

“I might know some guys,” he offered, “who could maybe help your friend, save you from…”

“I wouldn’t trust anyone you know… I don’t even trust anyone I know. _I_ have to do this, I…” She dropped her head into her hands. “For fucks sake, I had this all planned out in my head, all the explanations, all the answers you’d need, and now… I can’t mess this up, I can’t!”

“Hey! Hey, come on, don’t…” Benny shook his head. “Just hang on, let me get rid of Veronica. She knows to turn a blind eye but…”

He sat forward, flicking on the intercom to the outer office. “Veronica, I’m gonna be tied up here a while. You wanna take an early lunch?”

“It’s nine thirty, boss.”

“Late breakfast, then. Tell you what, let’s call it a Christmas shopping morning.”

“Do I get paid?”

He rolled his eyes, “Yeah you get paid.”

“You’re not gonna want me to work late are you to make up the time, cos I already told you it was Alice’s nativity play at kindergarten and…”

“And you want to leave early, I remember. Now go take advantage of my fucking generosity before I change my mind and give you a bucket of water and a windshield wiper.”

“Okay, okay, I’m going! Thanks boss.”

He hung up and got to his feet. “I need a coffee, you want coffee?” he asked, going over to the little kitchenette in the corner.

“Yeah,” she looked up, nodded gratefully. “Coffee would be good,” she admitted.

“You want cream? Sugar?”

“Both, two sugars.”

He brought her cup over. “You take it same way as me,” he told her, going back to his chair.

She tasted it. “I’ll remember that.”

“So… This friend of yours… How much trouble is he in?”

Diane wanted to level with him as much as she could. “More than I ever knew existed. People, they could die just for knowing about this. The thing is… I can’t say goodbye to Mom, can’t tell her I’m leaving, because if I did she might not be safe. So you can’t tell her anything. I don’t know when or if I’ll be able to contact her, I…”

“You can’t contact her,” he told her, then sighed. “I know this stuff, know how people are found, even when they go into witness protection. They get careless, homesick, and they fuck up. These people you’re running away from, I’m guessing they have influence?”

She nodded.

He went pale, his frown deep and worried. “I won’t tell your Mom anything, and I’ll take good care of her no matter what, I promise you that.

“As for the RV, you don’t want brand new. The people who own these things are fanatics. I give you a brand new top of the range model and you’ll have every other owner from here to wherever the hell you’re headed knocking on your door to take a look around. No, you want something older…”

He swivelled his chair over to the computer that stood on a side desk, “Something… Something no one’s gonna be interested in. Something like… Ha! Wait just a minute, let me see here… Yep! There it is!”

He gave Diane a manic grin. “I have just the thing here. Hang on just a minute.”

He moved back to his main desk, picking up the phone and pressing one of the buttons. “Vince, it’s me. Number two sixty-three; the ninety-three Monaco Crown Royale… Yeah, that one. Gas it up and get it ready. How long to go over it and make sure it’s ready to go out? Yeah Vince, I know it’s a damn good engine.” He paused, listening for a while. “I want _you_ to do it, don’t give it to anyone else. Yeah, okay… I’ll be down then.”

He hung up the phone and looked over at Diane. “Forty five minutes or thereabouts and you’ll have yourself an RV.”

“You’re not palming me off with some piece of shit you can’t get rid of are you?” she asked, only half joking.

“Actually, I can’t get rid of it, but not because it’s a piece of shit, not for you anyway.” He pointed to the window. “You ever been inside an A class RV?”

“No,” she shook her head.

“They’re palaces on wheels, pastel leather seating in a lot of em, fancy fittings, Venetian tiles, you name it. And that’s just the regular models, you start going for the custom stuff and you’re talking big money, real big money. What it all boils down to in the end is a good engine and a strong chassis. The one I want you to take is a ninety three model Monaco Crown Royale, a thirty eight footer. The engine’s perfect; full service history, well maintained, and damn reliable. It’ll still be running when some of the newer models down in the showroom are so much scrap. Plus the bodywork is in tip-top shape, the previous owner took real good care of it.”

“So why can’t you sell it?”

“Well the exterior paintwork… Not the best of colours I have to say, but inside… It has to be the ugliest fucking thing I’ve ever seen. The list price is $129,900.00, I’ve already knocked that down by over eighteen grand. I reckon to sell it I’ve either got to knock it down by the full twenty nine thousand or re-fit the fucking thing.”

“How can anything be that ugly?” She grinned.

“It is, trust me, but it’s comfortable enough. There are two double foldaways and a single, with a queen bed in the sleeping compartment. There’s a shower, toilet, heating and air-conditioning, a good sized microwave-oven combi, a refrigerator…”

She laughed. “You’re good at this, the salesman stuff.”

“To be honest, I kinda like it, the legit stuff, and I make a good living at it, but…”

She raised an eyebrow at him. “But?”

“I’m in too deep with the other business to get out now.”

She nodded. “I get that, even if I don’t like it.”

He got to his feet again, went to the area where the coffee was and moved aside a picture on the wall. There was a wall safe behind it and he opened it, took out some things. He came back over and handed her a stuffed, large, manila envelope. “Put this at the bottom of your bag huh?”

“What is it?”

“There’s about a hundred grand in there, give or take. You need cash when you’re on the run. Don’t use any cards or cheques once you leave town, but you know that, right?”

“Yeah, I know. I plan to clean my accounts out before I leave.”

He nodded. “There’s something else.”

He handed her a faded blue velvet jewellery case. “I erm… I always kept this because I hoped one day there might be a way for me to give it to you.”

Diane opened the case and gazed at the necklace inside.

“It’s gold,” he told her. “Rose gold, and the stones there, they’re amethysts. It belonged to my Grandmother, she gave it to my Mom, and… Well it’s yours now.”

He moved away, going back to his seat. “If you want it, that is. It’s old, but I don’t know how much it’s worth,” he told her, his back to her. “Sell it if you have to…”

“No...”

He turned to face her.

It was hard for Diane to get the words out, but she managed it without breaking eye contact with him or making a fool of herself. “I can’t sell this,” she told him, carefully shutting the case, “My Dad gave it to me.”

~~~~~~~~~~

 _Kirill awoke to find himself alone in his bed, but his nose quickly caught the pungent smell of cigarettes, and he could hear Nikolai’s voice from the other room. From the one sided nature of the conversation it was clear he was speaking on the telephone._

 _He sat up a little and his muscles protested at the movement, the pain causing him to wince. His body had been thoroughly used by his Colonel, and he felt every demand and submission: would continue to feel them for days._

 _Nikolai enjoyed inflicting pain, and he was good at it. When it came to sex he liked to blur the line between pleasure and pain to see just how much his partner could tolerate, how close to the pinnacle he could push them before giving the reward of release. Kirill knew to accept, to submit and do exactly as he was told. It didn’t make it any easier to bear, didn’t make it any more pleasurable, but it pleased Nikolai, and things were usually better if the Colonel was in a good mood._

 _Despite his discomfort this visit hadn’t been too bad, at least not so far. There had been no restraints, and no toys, both of which he hated._

 _Being restrained was the worst. It evoked memories of his training that he didn’t like to recall. Nikolai knew of course, just as he knew how to use that knowledge. He had a talent for getting inside Kirill’s head._

 _The bedroom door opened quietly. He didn’t attempt to feign sleep, the Colonel wasn’t easily fooled._

 _“This country,” Nikolai announced, coming to sit beside Kirill on the edge of the bed, “has too many bureaucrats, always has had, no matter what regime was in power. Too many nameless little men who require forms to be filled or palms to be crossed. I find their existence tiresome to say the very least. I fly out the day after tomorrow for a series of cultural visits, some official, some not. Eight weeks of endless smiling, I shall go insane.”_

 _As he spoke he moved back the bedclothes, uncovering Kirill. “You’ll continue to work for Yuri until I return, but I don’t want Gretkov mauling you anymore, do you understand?”_

 _“Yes Nikolai.” He wouldn’t miss Gretkov’s attentions, and he had to admit he’d take great pleasure in telling the little bastard no._

 _“The next time he asks you tell him that I have forbidden it. He won’t be happy, but he won’t insist._

 _“I find myself more tolerant,” he went on, “of your picking up girls. I understand that you have a need for release and I won’t deny it, at least for the time being, but I don’t want you bringing them here to the apartment. In future you’ll use a hotel.”_

 _As he spoke he stroked Kirill’s abdomen, his touch varying from ghostlike trailing of the fingertips to a firmer, massaging caress. Nikolai knew his body extremely well, he was as adept at giving him pleasure as he was at causing him pain. The pain Kirill could cope with, the pleasure was more difficult; his body responded all too easily, betraying his mind and making a mockery of his will to resist._

 _“I find myself feeling generous towards you. Putting aside the fact that I believe this problem of Yuri’s had a far simpler, and to my mind more satisfying solution than the one he chose, I’m pleased with the work you’ve done. Recovering the files and taking their money whilst the CIA looked on was excellent work. And killing Jason Bourne…” He smiled. “You did well my boy, very well.”_

 _Nikolai’s touch moved a little lower and without thinking Kirill found himself spreading his legs._

 _The older man chuckled, dark eyes capturing his. “Tell me about the hit.”_

 _“Bourne had been spotted in Goa, Gretkov’s source believed he had been there for some time.”_

 _“A little careless for a man in Bourne’s position,” Nikolai commented. “Was he alone?”_

 _“The intelligence mentioned no one else and I…”_

 _The fingers began to stroke the inside of his thigh and he lost his train of thought._

 _“Continue.”_

 _“He…I-I was not aware of anyone else,” he finished. “He was surprisingly easy to locate, recognisable from a photograph.”_

 _Nikolai nodded as his fingers leisurely traced the line of Kirill’s inguinal canal before moving to tease the inside of the opposite thigh. “It’s an easy mistake for those on the run for any considerable length of time. They begin to feel secure, settle into an easier way of life, and become complacent. A failing I would not have expected from Bourne.”_

 _“Complacent or not he spotted me almost immediately.”_

 _“Do you know why he spotted you?”_

 _“It was the…” he gasped as the fingers unexpectedly caressed his sac._

 _“Concentrate boy, tell me why.”_

 _He bit back a groan. “I-I suspect it was the car. Goa attracts a good number of hippies and backpackers from the west. The clothes were right, but the car was not. It was necessary but wrong,” he explained, forcing himself to ignore Nikolai’s touch as much as he could. “Bourne took flight in his vehicle and I gave chase, but he had off road capability and I did not. I pursued him on foot hoping to get a shot with the rifle before he was out of range. He was getting away, approaching the bridge over the river, so I took the shot. It was good,” he couldn’t keep the hint of pride from his voice, “a clean shot. The car went out of control and into the river.”_

 _Nikolai smiled. “Your marksmanship was always exceptional, that particular skill needed little in the way of retraining. These trinkets,” he took Kirill’s wrist in his free hand, the bruising grip in stark contrast to the soft caresses of the other hand, “the bracelets, the necklace, you bought them in India?”_

 _He nodded. “Yes.”_

 _“You will remove the necklace or I will personally remind you of the folly of wearing such a thing. The bracelets may stay, I like the way they look on you.”_

 _The grip on his wrist was released and Kirill immediately reached up and removed the necklace. With hindsight he knew Nikolai was right, he should have known better than to wear anything around his neck, but the thing had caught his eye. He dropped it onto the bedside table and heard Nikolai’s soft laughter._

 _“Instant obedience, another quality I admire, and one we had to work on long and hard with you, but it paid off beautifully.”_

 _Nikolai’s hand wrapped around his cock and Kirill tensed immediately._

 _“A little reward my boy, before I take my leave of you…”_

  
~~~~~~~~  



	16. The Good Samaritan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Follow on from 'The Bourne Supremacy'

**Chapter 16**

David walked out of the hospital to his space in the parking lot, nodding and waving to a couple of people he knew before stowing his bags in the trunk of the jaguar and getting into the car. Once there, he sat back and let out a long, slow sigh of relief.

Everything had gone according to plan so far. He’d made his phone call first thing from one of the hospital pay phones, arranged things at that end. The hardest part of the morning had been the lies he’d been forced to tell so many people in the short time he’d been at the hospital. He’d kept the lies simple and acceptably vague, as Jason Bourne had advised him, telling his employers, patients, friends and colleagues that after a little last minute shopping he was going off to spend Christmas with friends; no specifics, and he’d be back in the New Year… Except of course he wouldn’t.

It wasn’t something that sat right or easily with him. He’d miss this place, these people, and he felt considerable guilt at letting his patients down.

Bourne had been right, doing this wasn’t so easy, wasn’t as straight forward as he’d expected it to be. His patients however would still receive the very best of care, an alternative that Kirill simply didn’t have without him.

The fear he had seen in that young man earlier this morning had disturbed him a good deal. It was the second time he had seen him afraid like that, and once again it had seemed completely out of character. It only added fuel to David’s growing suspicion that the Russian had suffered a considerable amount of abuse at some point in his past. He had a theory, sparked by a paper he’d read in a medical journal a while ago, but it would need research, and Kirill had more immediate needs. As soon as he had time, though, he would pursue it, do some research, so he’d added a number of reference books to the things he was taking with him.

Time, he reflected, wasn’t something he had a great deal of today, and here he was, sat wool-gathering in the hospital car park. He had done what he had to do here, ensuring that they would be well stocked with medical supplies for the journey, but he still had a great deal to do before he met up with Diane once more.

~~~~~~~~

Kirill teetered on the edges of consciousness for quite some time before a dull ache from his ankle woke him enough to make him consider opening his eyes. Doing that wasn’t easy. Apart from his ankle he was extremely comfortable, and his body felt lethargic and was slow to respond.

When he did finally wake up he was a little confused, expecting to find himself in bed in his Moscow apartment. Slowly he began to recognise his surroundings and realised that he must have been caught up in some dream or memory of the past. .

His eyes slowly focused on Jason Bourne who was sitting in a chair nearby, watching him.

“Feeling groggy?” Bourne asked him.

Kirill nodded.

“David gave you something to help you rest. It might take a while to wear off.”

He’d been sedated, he remembered. The after effects felt familiar to him too, though he was uncertain why that would be.

“He said you shouldn’t fight it,” Bourne went on. “You should try and sleep as much as you can. How’s the ankle?”

“I… It woke me,” Kirill admitted.

“I’ll get you another ice-pack,” Bourne told him, getting up from the chair. “You hungry?”

He shook his head. “ _Niet_.”

Once Bourne had left the room Kirill struggled to sit up a little, not wanting the American to see the full extent of his weakness. Perhaps the man knew, or guessed, but Kirill had been trained to reveal as little as possible to an enemy…

Did he still think of Bourne as an enemy, he wondered as he managed to sit up a little more. Had he ever?

Bourne had been an adversary, someone to be bested. Calling him an enemy made it seem more personal, and for Kirill it had never been personal. It must have been personal for Bourne though, after his woman died…

Now Bourne was helping him. It didn’t make much sense, but for some reason he believed the American was sincere

Bourne came back a few minutes later with an ice-pack and a glass of milk. “David wanted to be sure you got some fluids inside you,” he told him, reaching into the pocket of his jeans and handing Kirill a pair of surgical gloves. Kirill noticed the American was already wearing them.

“You wiped the place down?” he asked as he slipped the gloves on.

Bourne nodded. “Best I can.” He handed over the milk once Kirill had pulled the gloves on. “I’m not gonna catch everything, but at least I’ll make things harder, buy us some time. I’m not even sure if the CIA has your prints, they weren’t in the file they gave me, but the FSB might have handed them over by now.”

“You think they are working with the CIA?”

Bourne nodded. “Looks that way, but I can’t figure out why. We can talk about it later when you’re rested.” He carefully placed the ice-pack on Kirill’s ankle, but it drew a wince from him anyway.

“Doesn’t look as bad as it did first thing,” Bourne reassured him. “The Professor thinks that if you rest it until tonight and then he straps it up for you, you should be able to walk a little.”

“I will walk,” Kirill assured him.

“Figured you would,” Bourne told him. “Drink the milk and get some sleep while I finish up here. The others won’t be back for a while.”

Left alone, he relaxed a little more and gratefully drank the milk. His mouth felt dry and unpleasant, probably because of the drug David had given him. He was still feeling it’s effects so he took Bourne’s advice once he’d drained the milk, and settled down to sleep, knowing it wouldn’t take long for him to drop off.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Diane parked the RV in the pre-arranged spot, not surprised to find David’s jaguar already parked and waiting.

The Professor got out when he saw her and she grinned at the expression on his face as he studied the outside of the RV. She couldn’t wait until he got a look at the inside of this ugly ass thing. She had to admit though, it drove like a dream. All she had to do was get the hang of the handling.

She swivelled around in her seat as the door opened and David clambered in, the expression on his face totally priceless.

“Good God!” He looked around, eyes wide. “I thought the outside, that dirty pink colour, was ugly, but… I think I’m actually speechless.”

Diane laughed. “It’s every grey-haired, old lady’s dream, a flowery pink RV.”

“Is the whole thing like this?”

“Pretty much. The sleeping compartment at the back is… well, not so flowery, toilet and shower too, but it’s still pretty erm… pink. Ignore the way it looks, it’s well equipped and mechanically we couldn’t ask for better. The engine’s in real good shape, it’s not gonna break down on us.”

“As long as it gets us where we want to go it doesn’t really matter how it looks, I don’t suppose.”

“This will get us there, and it’s old enough and ugly enough not to attract RV enthusiasts.”

“And this contact of yours,” David asked her, “Did he give you a good deal?”

She smiled. “We came to an understanding,” she told him. “So did you get everything?”

David nodded. “The bank was reeling over my closing the accounts and demanding cash. Did you have any problem?”

Diane laughed. “Cleaning out my account barely made a dent in the cash drawer. I never was much of a saver. Got something, though,” she told him, thinking of the money stuffed envelope Benny had given her.

“We’ll manage, don’t worry. I have the cell phones Bourne wanted and an assortment of clothing for Kirill, along with various other things. And I picked up a few food items…”

Diane frowned. “I did the food shopping like we agreed.”

“From the list?” The Prof asked her.

“Well…” Okay, so she hadn’t exactly stuck to the list he’d given her. “Kinda,” she told him.

“That’s what I thought,” he smiled. “There are limits to just how much snack food and sugar my body can tolerate. I’ll fetch everything from the car.”

  
Things went surprisingly well. They packed away what they needed to in the RV then left it safely parked, moving on to collect Bourne and Kirill’s belongings from the left-luggage lockers at the station. Bourne’s locker contained a non-descript nylon sports bag, Kirill’s an expensive leather bag of similar size. Diane remembered Bourne’s warning and resisted the temptation to look in either bag.

That left her with just one more thing she had to do before they could go back to David’s apartment.

~~~~~~~~~~

“Hey, Ross,” Diane smiled at the tired but beautiful hazel green eyes that gazed at her from behind the scruffy apartment door, two security chains in place as always, “You got a minute?”

“Officer Diane, and not in uniform,” he smirked revealing a set of perfect even white teeth, “You here to make my dreams come true?” There was laughter in the teasing, throaty voice.

“I need to talk to you Ross, gonna let me in?”

His head tilted in consideration before he shrugged. “Was awake anyway. You on your own?”

She nodded. “Yep, just me.”

The door closed and she heard the security chains being taken off before it opened again, wide this time.

“Come on in.”

Ross Jensen was a nicely built six footer, twenty six years old, but with boyish good looks that made him appear younger than he was. He was damn fine to look at, light brown hair that became almost blonde in the summer, gorgeous face that nearly always wore a cocky smile. He should have been a model, or an actor or something, but life had literally fucked him up a long time ago.

He had an impressive sheet down at the station. It showed a history of petty crime that went back to when he was just a kid… but that told you one thing and his file told you another. Ross had been abused, both violently and sexually, from a very young age by his father and uncle. It had taken a hellish long time for the authorities to finally work out what was happening and do something about it, but things went quickly after that. His dad and uncle were both convicted and sentenced to some serious jail time, which was cut short for the father when, after barely a month on the inside, he was killed in a fight with another inmate.

His uncle did his time, but was back inside within a year of his release for the rape and murder of a seven year old boy. Things should have gone right for Ross, he had no other family. He was snapped up by foster parents, which didn’t surprise Diane. From the pictures she’d seen he’d looked like an angel when he was a kid, but almost from the beginning the people who’d been assigned to care for him were just as bad as the ones he’d been taken away from.

He’d been just thirteen years old when he’d run away from yet another set of foster parents and started looking after himself.

He’d been arrested for petty crime, theft mostly, but the juvenile authorities didn’t seem able to hold on to him for long, let alone help him. By the time he was sixteen he was feeding his growing drug and alcohol addictions by hustling.

Diane had arrested Ross more than once since she’d been on the force, but the two of them had always clicked and somehow he’d become a friend.

Ross was a good man, no mean feat when you considered all he’d been through. He somehow bounced back from all the crap that his life threw at him, he’d even beaten his addictions to booze and drugs, but he couldn’t break away from the life he’d led, from the debts he owed to loan sharks, agencies, pimps, and dealers, no matter how hard he tried.

“You want some coffee or something?” he asked her as he securely locked, chained, and bolted the door behind her. “I need to wake myself up pretty soon anyway.”

He was dressed in a worn dark grey t-shirt and a pair of blue boxers that were presumably what he slept in. His feet were bare, he had bed hair and a face full of stubble, but he still looked fucking hot in Diane’s opinion.

“No, I’m good, but don’t let me stop you.”

He raised an eyebrow at her. “Want to stop with the polite stuff and tell me why you’re here?” he asked, scratching absently at his belly where the t-shirt had ridden up as he padded into the small kitchen.

“I… err… I need a favour.” Diane told him, following.

He snorted at that. “ _You_ need a favour from me?” The killer smile came back slow and easy. “Want me to make you happy baby, give you some idea of what I have guys lining up for?”

“Go fuck yourself!”

She pointed to the coffee pot before sitting down at the kitchen table. “I changed my mind, I’ll have a cup,” she told him.

“Hey! My fucking house, I make the rules! I’ll have a _please_.”

She scowled at him, but gave in anyway. “Okay, can I have a cup of coffee, _please_ ,Ross?”

“Sure.” The sunshine smile came back out. “So, is this a cop to hooker favour? You think I know something, can help maybe? Cuz you know I don’t kiss and tell right?”

“No, this is kind of personal.”

“What? Love life tips and shit?”

She shook her head. “Oh, man, don’t go there! In fact I’m thinking of changing my sexual preference! I swear it’d make life a whole lot fucking simpler!”

He shook his head. “Still no joy in the guy department?”

“Nope, none at all,” she sighed. “I’m pretty sure half the guys in my precinct think I’m a lesbian. Some of the girls put on the uniform and they look pretty. Me? I just look butch.”

“Hey you turn _me_ on.”

She flipped him the finger. “That kinda proves my point Ross, you’re gay for fucks sake, and look at you, you’re gorgeous. You must have most of the women you meet creaming their panties over you. Me, I wanna be every man’s idea of a wet dream and I look like a card carrying lesbian!”

He raised a curious eyebrow. “Did _you_ cream your panties over me?”

“Hell, no!”

He laughed loudly. “You’re such a bad fucking liar!”

“You know what your trouble is?” He asked her when he’d done with the laughing. “You’re just too down on yourself. You’ve got all the right equipment. I may be gay but trust me I’ve noticed. Nice tits, _great_ ass, big brown eyes and real sexy lips. You just need to show it all off a little. Wear your hair down now and then when you’re not workin’. Stop covering your tits up, wear something that’ll give the damn things some air. Do you even _own_ a dress?”

“A couple, but they’re kind of…” She squirmed, “I don’t feel right in them, I look kinda cheap and tacky.”

“So take a girlfriend clothes shopping with you.”

To do that she’d have to have a damn friend. It hurt to acknowledge that an ageing doctor and a male prostitute were pretty much all she had. “I hate clothes shopping.”

“It shows, but if you want to attract a guy you need to make the effort. Most of us are dumb bastards, we like our chocolates in a fancy wrapper, we don’t give a shit what’s on the inside, at least not at first.”

“Yeah well, maybe all that shit’s gonna have to wait for a while any way, I can’t be thinking about it now.”

His eyes lost their playful sparkle and he studied her face carefully. “Is something going on with you? What’s it about, this favour you’re asking me for?”

“It’s maybe better you don’t know the details.”

His whole demeanour softened. “Are you in some kind of trouble?”

The genuine concern in both his voice and his expression surprised her.

“No, not exactly, I’m going away for a while.”

He frowned. “You’re leaving?” He made no effort to hide his surprise. “Are you leaving the force?”

She nodded.

“But I thought you loved being a cop.”

“I do!” Diane admitted. “But some things are more important, you know?”

“What about your Mom, what does she think about…?” He stared at her. “She doesn’t know does she?”

She shook her head. “I can’t tell her, it’s… She’ll be okay.”

His arms folded over his chest and he quirked an eyebrow.

She pulled in a shaky breath. “I went to see Benny today, we had the talk.”

“ _The_ talk? You told him you knew? What did the fucker say?”

“Actually he said quite a lot. It wasn’t his choice not to tell me, it was Mom’s, and for all I might not be too happy about that I kinda understand why she did it, and I get why he let her.”

Ross was clearly sceptical. “This is Benny Borghese were talkin’ about. You sure you believe him.”

“Yeah,” she said quietly, “I do.”

Both eyebrows went up in surprise. “This leaving, it’s not got anything to do with him has it?”

“No. The only reason I went to see him today, why we had the talk, was that I needed a couple of favours from him before I leave.”

“He gonna help you out?”

“He has, and I know he’ll take care of Mom while I’m away.”

“You gonna tell me where you’re going, why?”

She shook her head.

“Gonna send me a postcard?”

She shook her head again.

Ross didn’t say anything for the longest time, just stood there unmoving. She couldn’t read him, but then that was never easy. He’d spent so many years hiding behind masks, not letting anyone see what he was really thinking and feeling that it was second nature to him now. She knew he trusted her enough to let something like his true self slip through now and then, but she knew he didn’t find it easy.

“Better that I don’t,” she told him.

He finally nodded. “So what’s the favour?”

“I need… I need to erm hire your professional services,” she explained awkwardly, uncertain now if she was going to offend him.

The smirk came back to his face, grew to a broad grin as he spoke. “As much as I love you babe you just don’t have the right equipment.”

When she didn’t say anything his expression changed, became serious once more. His tongue came out to stroke nervously over his lips. “You’re not bullshitting me are you?”

She slowly shook her head.

He turned away from her, turned his attention to making coffee, not letting her see his face.

“Ross?”

“What is it you want me to do?” he asked, busying himself with the coffee.

“Nothing you don’t want to.” She scrubbed her own hands over her face, knowing she’d fucked up. “Ross, I’m sorry, I…”

“Just tell me.”

“I need you to distract someone for me. How you do it is up to you, but I need a thirty minute distraction.” She fished in her trouser pocket pulled out a piece of paper with David’s address on it, “Here.”

He turned around, took it from her. “Fancy apartment block, I know where it is.”

Diane nodded. “There’s a uniformed concierge, a night man. His name is Artie Portman; greasy, blonde, slicked-back hair, ferret face…”

“A coke head, bad teeth, that guy?”

“You know him?” Diane couldn’t hide her surprise.

“Not personally but I heard some of the other guys talkin’. Guy thinks a lot of himself, claims his family own the building or something.”

“Not quite, his uncle manages the security firm who run the desk,” she explained. “I need Artie distracted away from his desk from around nine forty-five tonight for thirty minutes minimum. It doesn’t matter how you do it, I just need him distracted.”

“From anything specifically?”

“The parking garage. I’ll be leaving the building by the front exit at around nine thirty tonight, fifteen minutes after you see me leave I need you to make sure he doesn’t go anywhere near that damn garage for at least thirty minutes, longer if possible.” She saw his next question forming and spoke before it came. “I’m not doing anything wrong Ross, I swear, not breaking any laws. A friend of mine lives in that building, he’s leaving tonight and I don’t want Artie to be able to tell anyone when he left or who he left with.”

“So your friend’s in trouble and you’re helping him out, is that what you’re saying?”

She nodded. “That’s about it.”

“And you’re leaving tonight too?”

“Yeah.”

She saw his small swallow. “You think people are gonna be asking about you?”

Diane shrugged. “I doubt it, but if they do…”

“Like I said, I don’t kiss and tell.” He smiled, “Don’t kiss as a rule. You have to keep something back you know?” He stepped over to the table. “Something that means something.”

He leaned down and caught Diane’s chin in his fingers, turning her face up to meet his. The kiss was tentative and gentle against her lips.

“Oh, fuck man!” It came out in a sob. She reached up to take his face in her hands and kissed him back before gently touching her forehead to his. “You’re killing me, y’know?”

She felt him nod and he kissed her nose before he smiled. “Want that coffee?”

She could only nod back at him.

Diane drank the coffee in silence, fighting back tears. First Benny, now this, it was turning into one hell of a day. She risked glances at Ross as he puttered around pouring himself a bowl of Lucky Charms.

“You want some of these?”

“Nah, I’m good.”

He came and took the other seat at the small table, bringing the cereal and his coffee with him.

“There erm… There’s something else Ross.”

He paused, the spoon half way to his mouth. “You’re kidding me?”

“No, I… I’m not asking you to do this for me for nothing, like I said I want to hire you…”

She saw a flare in his eyes and he started to speak but she stopped him.

“Just wait Ross, listen. I want…” She went back in her pocket pulled out another sheet of paper and offered it to him.

He frowned, putting down his spoon and taking it from her. Diane watched his expression as he realised what it was, saw surprise and uncertainty there.

“This is your car registration document.”

“Signed over to you. The car will be parked opposite the entrance to the buildings parking garage tonight. I’ll tape the keys under the front nearside wheel arch.”

“Your Mazda?”

“It’s a good car Ross, not even a year old. Think of it as a going away present, a thank you, huh? You can keep it, sell it, whatever you like. You could even drive away in it, maybe make a fresh start somewhere else. Things can change.”

“You’re serious.” It wasn’t a question.

“Never been more serious in my life.”

“I… I’d have done it for nothing y’know?”

“I wanted you to have the car, I know how much you like it.”

He smiled. “Always could see myself behind the wheel of a car like that, just never thought I’d own one. You leave this Artie Portman guy to me. Doing his job’s gonna be the last thing on his mind tonight, I promise you!”

~~~~~~~~~


	17. Fic Post

**Chapter 17**

“How has he been?” David asked quietly, his focus on Kirill the moment he entered the lounge. “Any problems?”

“No, he’s been fine,” Jason assured the older man as he checked over the items he and Diane had brought back with them. “He’s been asleep most of the time, woken up twice that I know of. The first time his ankle was hurting, and he woke up again about an hour ago but not for long, he drifted back to sleep pretty quickly.”

The Professor nodded. “Has he had a drink?”

“Both times, I made sure.”

“That’s good, very good.” He seemed pleased. “I could use a drink myself, why don’t I make us all some coffee?”

“Not for me,” Diane told him. “Once we’re done here I’m gonna sack out on a bed, get some sleep.”

Jason nodded, approving. “Looks like you got everything.”

“Everything on the list,” she glanced over at the Professor a smile in her eyes, “and more besides.” She nodded at the gloves Jason was wearing. “You wiped down the place?”

“Yeah it’s done. Anything that buys us time is to our advantage,” he explained. “While they’re searching for prints we’re clocking up the miles. They have the advantage over us with funds, resources, and manpower, so we have to stay ahead of the game.”

She nodded. “Keep ‘em guessing.”

“All the time,” Bourne grinned at her. “So what about the camera in the parking garage?” he wanted to know, “Did you get a look at it?”

“Yeah. As far as I could see there’s just the one camera beside the elevator. It’s pretty basic, doesn’t move, it’s just focused on whoever uses the elevator. I left a Christmas gift bag in David’s car, soon as you’re ready I can go down for it, place this device of yours, I think without being seen. Only problem is reaching the camera, it’s pretty high up on the wall.”

“Can you get within three feet or so?”

“Yeah, that shouldn’t be a problem,” she assured him.

“What are the chances of retrieving it without being caught on camera? Once its three feet away it’s gonna stop working.”

“The device would clue them in that you’d been here right, that you were helping the Russian?”

He nodded.

“Shouldn’t be difficult.”

“Then we’re good,” he told them. “You’ve done well, both of you.”

“It wasn’t as easy as I thought,” David admitted, taking a seat in the armchair. “The pretence… I can’t say it sat well with me.”

“There’s still time to change your mind,” Bourne told him.

David shook his head. “I won’t lie to you and say that I haven’t had second thoughts, but no,” he glanced over at Trediakovsky. “I’m determined to go ahead with this.”

Because of the Russian, Jason realised. It bothered him that the Professor was willing to give up so much for the man, and there was a part of him that wanted to ask David just exactly why he would do that. It had to be something more than simply pity, he must see some quality in the man, and that disturbed Bourne, disturbed him a lot.

“You gonna open the guy’s bag?” Diane asked, breaking his chain of thought.

He shook his head. “Kirill can do it when he wakes up.”

She raised an eyebrow. “You don’t really think there’s anything dangerous in there do you?”

David raised a brow, “Dangerous?”

“There’s a slim chance that the bag could be booby trapped, but I doubt it.”

“Whoa, hold on here a second,” Diane’s face was incredulous. “You’re gonna hand over a bag that could maybe blow up or something to a guy who can barely remember where he is, let alone know what the fuck he’s doing?”

Her voice had become loud and Bourne wasn’t surprised to see the Professor give her a pointed look, his expression pained.

“I doubt that Mr Bourne would simply hand the bag over to Kirill if he thought there was much risk involved, and I’ll be interested to see if either the bag or its contents jog any more memories.”

Jason was curious. “Have you dealt with patients suffering from memory loss before?”

“Amnesia, yes,” he nodded, “a surprising number of them over the years.”

“When I spoke to Kirill this morning it seemed like his memory was full of holes, are most amnesiacs like that?” he wondered. “Do you get many patients whose memory of their past is almost a total blank?”

“There are different types of amnesia, different causes. Seizures by them selves can trigger a certain type, stress too, but in Kirill’s case I’d be inclined to suspect brain damage from the head trauma he suffered in the accident, both as reason for the amnesia and the seizures.”

Jason nodded. He wanted to ask more, find out what the Professor might know about his own particular circumstances, but now was neither the time nor the place. He reached into his bag instead, took out the device that would disrupt the signal from the CCTV camera.

“Is that the thing?” Diane asked him.

“Yeah.” It was a dull rubberised circular box, no larger than a squash ball. “I’m gonna set it to work by remote control, so I can trigger it once we’re in the elevator tonight. Give me ten minutes to adjust the settings then all you have to do when you get downstairs is peel off the backing here, see?” He showed her. “It’ll stick to just about anything.”

She nodded. “Got it!”

“What about the concierge?” he asked her. “You said you knew a way to distract him, stop him from coming down and checking the fault on the camera.”

“I think the chances of Artie checking up on anything are pretty fucking slim to be honest,” Diane told him. “But yeah,” she grinned, “I’ve arranged for him to be otherwise engaged, we should have plenty of time to get out of here without being seen.”

“ _We_?”

Kirill’s voice surprised all of them. Bourne watched him slowly sit up.

“What do you mean we?” he asked again, eyes locked on Jason’s.

It was the Professor that answered. “The four of us, tonight. We’ve discussed this at some length and we think it’s better if…”

He never got the chance to finish. There was real anger in the glare Trediakovsky turned on Jason, and in the stream of curse laden Russian he spat at him.

As Bourne struggled to translate what he was saying, Kirill had already switched to his heavily accented English.

“There should be no we! David should not be involved in this! You should not have allowed it!”

“Allowed it?” David cut in. “Mr Bourne has no say in what I do. This was _my_ decision.”

Kirill flicked a dismissive glance at the Professor. “You do not understand what you are doing, cannot possibly understand.”

He turned back to Bourne, switching to Russian once more, slower this time which made it easier for Jason to translate. “He is a decent man, a good man, you must see that. He doesn’t know what our world is like, how much danger this will put him in. You should not have encouraged him, involved him…”

“I didn’t,” Jason explained in English. “I didn’t want him along, or the girl, they know that and I’ve explained exactly why to them both enough times for them to understand. I was wasting my breath!”

“Not wasting,” the Professor told him. “I understand your concerns but they don’t outweigh my own.” He turned to Kirill. “You need help,” he explained, “help that Mr Bourne alone cannot give you.”

“It is not your concern old man!”

The professor didn’t lose his patient tone despite Trediakovsky’s goading, “I’ve made it my concern, and I’m not going to change my mind.”

“David, please I…” Kirill sighed. “It is enough, what you have done.” His brow  
furrowed. “I am grateful, I… You must not do this.”

“Chances are that the Professor’s already too involved,” Jason pointed out. “He might be more at risk if he were to stay. There’s a good chance we’re not just talking CIA here.”

Reminding Kirill that the FSB might well be involved seemed to hit home.

“The argument is academic,” David put in, “As much as you might hate the idea, you’re not well enough to leave here on your own. You have to ask yourself, realistically, how far you’d get. Even with help from Mr Bourne, who I know to be a very capable young man simply by virtue of the fact that he tracked you down here, you’re not well enough to cope with a long journey. What happens if you have seizure when he’s not with you? You’re so disoriented afterwards that anything could happen. And what if that seizure goes on too long, or you go into another one straight away? You’re physically exhausted, even with the rest you’ve had since you came here. You’re underweight, physically and mentally stressed. You need Mr Bourne’s help Kirill, but you need mine too…”

Convincing his Samaritan to change his mind wasn’t going to happen, Kirill realised, no matter how much he tried. What Bourne had said about this not merely being a CIA operation disturbed him too. If the FSB were involved in this then David would be in danger, even if he remained here and did nothing further, the girl too.

She hadn’t said anything, hadn’t become involved in the argument, not that that surprised Kirill. Of all of them she was the only one whose motives in helping him he understood. She was in this because of David. She saw herself as his protector, not just from the people who were after Kirill but from Kirill himself, and Bourne. Not that she could do anything, but at least her motives made sense to him. David’s didn’t… and as for Bourne…

Bourne should have killed him. He would have made it quick at least.

Kirill gave up on the discussion, stopped arguing, let David come and sit beside him, fuss over him. He answered the older man’s questions about how he was feeling and he submitted to his brief examination, but Bourne had his attention.

The American handed the device he’d been preparing to jam the CCTV signal, over to the girl to place, and David eventually left them to prepare something for them to eat and drink.

Only when they had both left, did Bourne meet his eyes. “We can argue some more over this if that’s what you want, but I didn’t want them along any more than you do. The fact is, though, the old man has a point: you do need more help than I can give you. I just wish he wasn’t the one giving it. He seems like a good man.”

“Maybe too good.”

“Maybe,” Bourne agreed. “He and the girl checked out your locker at the railway station earlier.”

He got up and retrieved a large leather holdall from beside the chair, brought it over to him. “Recognise it?” he asked as he took a seat on the padded footstool beside the couch.

Kirill studied it carefully, hoping for some flash of memory. He shook his head, “ _Niet_.”

“Might be that it was just left there for you. You may not have seen it before,” Bourne reasoned. “Want to open it?”

“ _Da_ ”

Bourne placed it in his lap.

“You did not look inside?” Kirill asked him.

“No, I thought I’d leave that to you. Take your time huh?”

He nodded, running his gloved fingers over the expensive piece of leather luggage. There was no lock on the bag, it was just zipped, but it wasn’t setting off any alarm bells in his head. He flicked a sideways glance to an attentive Bourne before unzipping the bag.

There was clothing at the top, his clothing he realised as he pulled it out; black jeans, still bearing their label, a black t-shirt, and a shirt, both still in their packaging and two packets, one of socks, one of boxer briefs. It was all good quality, expensive clothing despite its casual nature. There was a toilet bag too with a shaving kit, tooth brush, comb, deodorant, Guerlain’s Heritage cologne…

“Familiar?” Bourne asked him quietly.

“I-I know it,” he shook his head. “There is something, vague…”

“Take off the top, smell it.”

He did as he was told.

“ _I find the stench of cheap cologne nauseating. Shower it off._ ”

The cologne was immediately recognisable. He remembered the brand had been bought for him with instructions he should wear that and nothing else. “I wear… wore,” he corrected himself, “this, no other cologne.” He didn’t add that he wasn’t permitted, didn’t want to go there, not with himself or Bourne.

“What else is in the bag?” the American asked patiently.

A heavy black Ziploc bag. When he opened it, it was full of neat bundles of used bank notes. “Dollars.” He handed it over to Bourne.

“Getting-around money,” Bourne pointed out as he flicked through one of the bundles. He whistled, “A hell of a lot of it. Anything else?”

Finally there was something comfortably familiar to him; the silenced Beretta 92 fitted his hand like an old friend. He resisted the urge to load a clip into the magazine. Instead he put it down on the couch beside him, the box of ammo too.

“What else?” Bourne asked him, nodding towards the bag.

As soon as he picked up the flick knife a picture popped into his head and began to play. He saw an identical knife in his gloved hands, a small basement room in an office block. He was placing explosive devices on the electrical conduits, a finger print…

“Berlin,” his thoughts came together quickly. “I was in Berlin,” he met Bourne’s eyes as the knowledge of just what he was doing there came flooding back.

‘ _Recovering the files and taking their money whilst the CIA looked on was excellent work…You did well my boy, very well_.’

“The CIA had a buy in place. I took out the seller and the CIA contact man, recovered the files and took the three million dollars they planned to pay for them.” He looked down at the knife in his hand, flicked it open, remembering. “I planted your fingerprint for them to find.”

“I figured it had to be you,” Bourne told him.

“Gretkov had a man on the inside; Abbott?” he offered.

Bourne nodded. “Ward Abbott, he set the whole thing up to cover his own ass. I’d gone off the map as far as the CIA were concerned, but I’d gotten sloppy and Abbott knew where to find me. He kept that knowledge to himself. The plan was that you’d kill me after setting me up, that way no one would ever find out the truth.”

“Easier if Gretkov had let me kill Abbott,” Kirill told him, “less complications.”

“You must have met with Gretkov, or his people in Berlin after the job, then flown straight out to Goa.”

“Gretkov,” he remembered, “I met with Gretkov, he was there for oil conference.”

 _Gretkov was waiting for him in his hotel room as planned._

 _“You’re late.”_

 _Kirill didn’t rise to the bait, he just dropped the holdall on one chair, his suit bag on another. “The files,” he told him._

 _Gretkov opened the holdall and checked out the contents, once he was happy he dropped two bundles of notes on the table. “You’ll get the rest when you finish the job.”_

 _The money was the only perk Kirill could see in working for the man._

 _“I need to clean up.”_

 _“Hurry,” Gretkov instructed as he studied the files contents, “your plane leaves in one hour.”_

 _He moved into the little bathroom, checked his gun’s clip. “Are you sure the information is good?”_

 _“He’ll be there.”_

 _He slipped off the long sleeve polo shirt he was wearing. He needed to grab a quick shower._

 _“I take it everything went smoothly?” Gretkov asked. He was leaning against the door._

 _“According to plan.”_

 _Gretkov walked in as Kirill knew he would, moved to stand behind him. Kirill felt a hand skim over his lower back._

 _“I don’t have much time,” Kirill pointed out, “Remember?”_

 _The touch became firmer. “You can shower when you get there. I want you over the sink.”_

 _He didn’t speak, kept his expression disinterested as he unfastened his pants, moved them down over his hips, underwear too. He never allowed Gretkov the luxury of seeing what he was thinking. He knew that was what the bastard wanted, but he had no intention of revealing any more than he had to, not for this man._

 _He leant over the sink, supporting himself on his elbows as he heard Gretkov slicking on a condom._

 _He spread his legs, studiously ignoring his reflection in the mirror, keeping his eyes fixed on the vanity as Gretkov’s fingers probed at his hole. The stretching, what there was of it, was uncomfortable and perfunctory, doing little to prepare him for the blunt pressure from Gretkov’s latex covered cock. The condom was lubricated at least, but the burn was intense and Gretkov didn’t go in for such niceties as waiting for you to adjust; he simply pushed his way in, gripping Kirill’s hips with both hands, not allowing him to move. He didn’t stop until he was balls deep, his breathing heavy as he gave a hiss of satisfaction._

 _“I should speak to Nikolai, see if I can’t make our little arrangement more permanent.” Kirill knew that was bullshit, knew the little bastard would never have the nerve. “How often does he fuck you?”_

 _The slow pull out had Kirill clenching his hands into fists, but he kept the discomfort from his voice and his face as he answered._

 _“As often as he wishes.”_

 _“Can’t be easy being his bitch,” Gretkov jibed._

 _Kirill ignored the taunt, gritted his teeth as the older man pushed back in, a little faster, not as deep, but it was a few more strokes before the discomfort eased and by then Gretkov was in his stride, pounding into him as Kirill’s now achingly hard cock was pressed into the underside of the vanity basin._

 _The fuck, as always, was thankfully short-lived. Gretkov came with a shout, pushing into him as deeply as he could, body trembling as he came, fingers digging what would be livid purple bruises into Kirill’s hips._

 _He withdrew his flaccid cock. “Get dressed, you don’t have long.”_

“Do you remember much about the meeting?” Bourne’s voice cut into the unwanted memory, “about Gretkov?”

He shook his head avoiding the other man’s eyes. “Nothing good.”

Closing the knife, he put it down next to the Beretta. All that remained in the bag was another Ziploc. He took it out and dropped the leather holdall back on the floor. There were four passports, more than that, four complete identities; passports, visa’s, birth certificates and drivers licenses, complete and perfect, ready to be stepped into. A couple of them also had bank accounts. He showed them to Bourne.

“The question is, did you set these up yourself or were they set up for you?”

Kirill nodded. As he’d looked them over no detail felt familiar or triggered any kind of memory.

“I do not know.”

There was a risk if they were set up by the FSB, his movements could be traced through the passports, or any use of the bank accounts. There were so many things he needed to remember, being fucked by Gretkov not being one of them.

He turned back to the Ziploc bag, there were just two items remaining and the first one caught his eye because it was so out of place; a gold crucifix on a chain. He dangled it from his fingers so Bourne could see.

Even he seemed surprised. “Yours?”

He shook his head. “ _Niet_ , it means nothing.”

He put it down, pulled out the last item, it was an article torn from an American newspaper.

He read through the clipping, stared at the photo of the dead journalist hoping something about it would strike him as familiar, but he hit a blank, just as he had with the crucifix. He turned it over wondering if what was significant was actually on the back, but he saw nothing that he recognised there either.

Frowning he passed it over to Bourne.

The American looked it over just as Kirill had before giving it back to him and getting up. He went over to the table where the lap top was set up, came back with a large manila envelope.

“What do you have?” Kirill was curious.

“Remember the things the Professor took from your pockets?”

He nodded.

“I put them in here for safe keeping.” He sat down. “There’s a cross of some kind in here too, and a clipping.”

There was, Kirill remembered. When Bourne handed the cross to him he remembered even more. It was Russian Orthodox cross, a silver one, with two horizontal and one diagonal bars crossing a vertical pole. It was old, but of little value, at least not to anyone else. When he’d looked at it earlier there had been a familiarity about it, a sense that it belonged, but there was more now, much more. It was the cross his mother had kept in the bottom drawer of her bureau beside a book of poetry and a pair of white lace gloves that had yellowed over the years. They were his grandmother’s things. When his mother died his grandfather had given the cross to him for safekeeping, keeping the gloves and the poetry book for himself. Both had been lost, along with everything else, in the fire that had ripped through their tiny house, killing the old man.

“I-I know this, it is like the medal.”

“A family heirloom?”

Kirill nodded. He almost put it on, but a voice in his head warned of the folly of wearing anything around his neck, the tone threatening dire consequences if he disobeyed. He held onto it instead, his free hand coming up to unconsciously rub at his throat.

Bourne turned his attention to studying the portion of newspaper he had removed from the envelope.

“You can’t really see the print on this one, the cutting’s too faded, looks like it got wet, but…” He held it up to the light. “You can still see the picture.” He handed it over to Kirill.

“You think it is same woman?” He was fairly certain it was.

Bourne nodded. “They look like obituaries from different papers, but it looks to me like it’s the same shot of the woman, probably a stock publicity photo. Why would you keep the clippings?”

Kirill shook his head, not knowing. He studied the woman’s face once more waiting for that spark of recognition, but it didn’t come. Had he killed her?

If he had, why keep the clipping? Why had he been carrying one around with him amongst things he had treasured like the cross and his grandfather’s medal? What made the woman’s death, the woman herself, so important to him?

He closed his eyes, scrubbing at his forehead with the heel of his hand as a headache began to pound in his temples.

“You okay?” Bourne asked him.

“You think I killed her?”

“Maybe… Do you?”

“I… I don’t know, I can’t…” He was losing concentration, the pain in his head threatening to overshadow everything else.

“Is everything alright?” David’s voice asked.

Kirill didn’t answer as he tried to will away the headache.

“Did the contents of the bag trigger a memory?”

Bourne answered David this time. “A couple.”

“That’s very good, but… May I?”

Bourne had moved away, Kirill realised, when his Samaritan’s voice came from beside him.

“Do you have a headache?”

He nodded. “It is bad when I need to remember. You can make it go away?”

“I can give you something to ease it, yes.” He took Kirill’s wrists gently, moved his hands down, away from his face. “You’ve been remembering things?”

“I need to know more,” he told David. “Things come but…”

“I’m thinking that you’ve remembered more today than you have in a very long time.”

“ _Da_ ,” Kirill agreed.

“And that’s very good, but you mustn’t push yourself too hard. Trying to force the memories won’t work. This headache is telling you to stop, to relax now, let things come in their own time.”

Kirill let out a sigh of frustration. “Is there another choice?”

“Not really, not unless you want to push yourself into further seizures or perhaps a stroke.” The older man squeezed his wrist gently before releasing his loose grip. “I know this must be very frustrating and difficult for you and I’m sorry. Rest will help, taking care of yourself physically. I’ve brought you some food and I want you to eat as much of it as you can, you’ll need the energy for later. I’ll bring you something for the headache, and when you’ve finished eating I’m going to strap up your ankle, help it to bear your weight, okay?”

Kirill met the man’s gentle gaze, knowing he was right. “As you say.”

~~~~~~~~~~

Ross stamped his feet against the cold as he stood in the shadows opposite the apartment building where this friend of Diane’s lived. He checked his watch hoping that fifteen minutes had finally passed since he’d seen her leave, he was freezing his ass off out here in the snow.

“Thank fuck,” he muttered as he checked the time.

He crossed the street to the building, putting on a winning smile as he came within sight of the glass doors of the main entrance. He could see the concierge guy Artie inside behind the desk in the warm looking foyer and he knew he had a choice now. He could either sweet talk his way into the building or he could cause enough of a disturbance outside to keep the creep’s attention. The warm looking foyer won out, and the fact that he didn’t want anyone calling the cops on him, and he leaned on the buzzer, kick ass smile well and truly in place.

He saw Portman look up from the desk, check the door, and he saw the look of recognition. Artie Portman was well known amongst Ross’s friends who worked the streets and clubs. The guy liked ass, but despite all his big money talk he didn’t like to pay much for it, so generally he went for the new kids, the ones who were young, desperate and fresh to the streets. And from what Ross had heard he didn’t treat them too good.

These days Ross avoided guys like Portman, he avoided working the streets altogether if he could, sticking to his regular customers and bars where he was known. He’d seen Portman looking before though, knew the creep was more than interested.

He moved now from his desk to the doors, a greedy expression plastered all over his rat face.

“You lost or somethin’?” Portman drawled through the intercom.

He pressed the button, moved his lips close to the speaker, never taking his eyes off Artie. “Or something,” he agreed. “Guy dropped me off back there. I’m kind of desperate for a leak and I remembered someone telling me you were in charge here.”

The other man puffed up at the flattery. “There’s an alley ‘round back, take a piss there. This place is exclusive.”

“Oh come on Artie, be a pal, huh? If I take a pee out here my dick’s gonna freeze to the floor. I won’t take nothin’, won’t do nothin’. You can come in with me, search me, whatever you want man, just let me come in and take a leak, huh?”

Ross had no doubts about Portman letting him in. The guy was just about drooling.

“Okay you can come in, but I’m gonna have to be with you the whole time,” he gave a sickly grin that flashed a set of uneven yellow teeth, “and I’m thinkin’ it’s gonna cost ya?”

Ross licked his lips slowly. “You know me, always up for some fun.”

Portman couldn’t buzz him in fast enough.

~~~~~~~~~~~~  



	18. The Good Samaritan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Follow on from 'The Bourne Supremacy'

**Chapter 18**

Their leaving plan was actually very, very simple David reflected. At nine thirty Diane left his apartment building by the main entrance, ensuring that Artie Portman, the odious night concierge, saw her. Fifteen minutes later, giving Diane enough time to reach the RV and drive it back, Mr Bourne, Kirill and David himself travelled down to the parking garage in the elevator, Bourne using a remote control to trigger the device that would disrupt the CCTV camera. As they had discussed, it was the perfect time of the evening for them to leave without bumping into any other residents. Those who were going out for the evening had, most probably already left, and any others were settled in for the evening. It proved to be a good guess. They didn’t bump into anyone else.

The whole plan would have gone off without a hitch if Kirill hadn’t gone into seizure just seconds before the elevator doors opened onto the parking garage.

Bourne threw their bags out of the elevator before turning to David, his face grim.

“We can’t stay here while he works through this. We have to get him into the RV and get out of here now!”

“It’s really not a good idea,” David told him as he knelt beside the Russian. “It’s not safe…”

“We have no choice! We have to move him David! Okay?”

David nodded unhappily, but knew the American was right. “Very well…”

“We’ll get him into the sleeping compartment at the back. We can help him there while Diane gets us out of here.”

Bourne moved out of the elevator. Diane had parked the RV well away from there, to be out of the camera’s field of vision, and was stood beside it waiting for them. “Diane!” Bourne shouted. “Get the bags!”

As she started towards him, he turned his attention back to David and Kirill. It was no easy task lifting the convulsing man off the floor and getting him into the RV. Bourne took most of Kirill’s weight, David taking his legs. Even though David had the easier task it was incredibly difficult to keep his grip on the convulsing man. Especially once they started moving towards the RV. David was fearful they were going to drop him. When he risked a glance at Bourne he could see the concern in the younger man’s face echoed his own. It seemed to take forever before they reached the RV, and David gave a quiet sigh of relief as they carefully eased their burden inside.

Diane followed them with the bags, throwing them into the RV behind them.

“I need to go and get the gadget off the wall, then we’re out of here!” she told them.

The convulsions had eased, indicating the seizure was just about over by the time they got Kirill onto the bed.

“We need to get him undressed and cleaned up,” David instructed Bourne, sitting down abruptly on the bed as the RV set off.

It didn’t take the two of them long. Kirill barely stirred into consciousness, drifting into sleep almost as soon as the seizure ended. His vitals were good though so David wasn’t particularly concerned.

“I suppose I should have expected that to happen,” he told Bourne as they made their way out of the rear sleeping compartment and sat down. He took a look out of the window, not surprised to see that it was snowing once more. The wind seemed to have picked up too.

“We were lucky,” Bourne pointed out, “ _this_ time. We may not be quite so lucky if it happens again. Is there any medication you can give him to prevent the seizures? We’re going to draw a lot of attention to ourselves if that happens in public.”

David took his point. “I had hoped to know a lot more about the cause of the seizures before I prescribed anything, but you’re right. I’ll see what I can do.”

David yawned. It occurred to him that he’d barely had any sleep in the last forty-eight hours and he couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt this tired.

“Get some sleep,” Bourne told him. “I’ll take over from Diane in a few hours. We need to put as many miles between ourselves and New York as we can.”

David gazed at the younger man thoughtfully. There was something that had been praying on David’s mind all day. It wasn’t a question he was eager to ask, but he wanted to know. “May I ask you for an honest answer to a question?”

Bourne nodded. “If I know the answer, sure.”

“Do you think we stand a chance?”

Bourne didn’t answer quickly, which in a way David found reassuring. The man had obviously considered his answer, that or he was trying to find a gentle way to break the bad news to him.

“We have a chance, yeah, but it won’t be easy. We have to stay focused all the time, make the most of any advantage so we can stay ahead of the game. And we have to be alert…”

“In other words, go to sleep, David?”

He heard Bourne chuckle softly. “It wasn’t a hint, but yes, take your rest whenever you can get it.”

“I can’t deny that I’m tired,” David admitted. “Kirill will need looking in on…”

“I’ll check on him in a couple of hours, wake you if anything seems wrong.”

David yawned again. “Nos da.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Diane was relieved when Bourne came to take over the driving. She didn’t feel particularly tired, but the monotony was beginning to get to her; the straight roads, the purr of the engine, the steady _thwack- thwack_ of the wipers as they scraped the snow off the windshield.

“It’s been a long day,” Bourne told her, voice low and quiet, “Get some rest.”

“In a while,” she told him. “I need to stretch and move around a little, maybe eat something. You hungry?”

He shook his head. “No, I’m fine. If you like I could pull in at the next place we pass, you could stretch your legs, get some hot food…”

“Nah, I’m fine. I just need a Coke, maybe a pack of those sandwiches David made.”

“They’re good,” Bourne admitted.

“Everything he makes tastes good.” Diane smiled fondly over at the sleeping man who was snoring softly nearby. “If he hadn’t been a doctor I’m pretty sure he would have opened a restaurant or something.” She looked back at Bourne. “Sure I can’t get you anything?”

He nodded. “You _can_ do me one favour, check on Kirill. I looked in on him a couple of hours ago and he was still sleeping.”

“Those seizures seem pretty bad… You think he’s going to have one every day?”

“David thinks they’re coming more frequently because he’s stressed, anxious. He should be able to give him something that’ll help.”

She remembered how upset Kirill had been that David was going along with them. His anger had surprised her, made her look at the Russian with a little more respect.

“I’ll check on him,” she told Bourne.

First things first, she needed the bathroom.

There was something kind of weird about peeing in a moving RV, especially in all this pinkness. At least it wasn’t quite so flowery in here.

She washed her hands when she’d finished and stared at her reflection in the mirror. She rolled her shoulders, trying to relieve the knots of tension that had settled there and begun to move up to her neck. Six hours of driving an unfamiliar vehicle in bad weather conditions would do that to you, especially if you were leaving behind everything comfortable and familiar. This was going against the grain for her; breaking fuck-knows how many laws. She was still having trouble justifying her own reasons for going along on this lunatic expedition.

The woman staring back at her didn’t look like a fugitive, a bad cop, a law breaker. She looked different though, felt different too. She felt softer, as if the hard shell that she always wore to hide what was inside her, had started to melt a little. Talking to Benny had done that for her, forcing her to see him as the man he really was, and not simply the bastard it had been so easy to convince herself he had to be. And that kiss from Ross… Whatever happened, however this fucked up mess that they were in turned out, some good things had come of it… at least for her.

She went to the galley kitchen and retrieved a bottle of Coke from the refrigerator before searching through the neatly labelled packets of sandwiches and choosing the BLT. There was fresh fruit salad, store-bought in sealed plastic dishes, so she took one of those too. Only David could turn going on the run into some kind of British picnic. She wondered if all Brits were like David, or whether he’d be just as extraordinary in his homeland. She’d heard that the British were polite, like the Canadians, but she’d never met another Brit, or a Canadian come to think of it.

She picked up the food and was about to sit down when she remembered the Russian. She moved to the rear of the RV, quietly opening the door to the sleeping compartment. It was neither legal nor truly safe for Kirill to be in here like this but, because of the seizure, it had been the easiest place for David and Bourne to put him whilst they took care of him and cleaned him up. They’d left him there sleeping, one of the thick throw rugs from David’s apartment added to the bedding to keep him warm.

He had turned onto his side, facing away from the door, so she moved quietly around the small room, sitting down on the side of the bed so she wouldn’t stumble as the RV fish-tailed slightly in the snow laden wind.

He was asleep, oblivious to his surroundings. The room’s night light provided enough illumination for her to see his face. The guy had a gorgeous face, even asleep like this. The too thick beard and moustache couldn’t hide the fact that his lips were incredibly full, really sexy… He probably kissed like a dream.

He had great eyes too. Even closed, you could see how large they were, and she loved the way his long, dark lashes fanned out against his pale skin. His hair needed sorting out, and he’d look tidier with a shave. It didn’t matter that his hair was long, but it looked like someone had hacked at it with a knife or something. It needed trimming and tidying up. Maybe when they stopped, if there was time, she’d buy a pair of hairdressing scissors and do it for him. She might not be any good at styling her own hair, but she had a good eye and a steady hand when it came to cutting other peoples. She’d even made a few bucks at it when she was at the academy.

A few stray wisps of hair had drifted across the Russian’s face. She put her food and drink down on the bed and reached out to carefully move them out of the way.

She’d barely touched him when a hand reached out, lightening fast, and grabbed her wrist. His grip was so tight it wrung a yelp of pained surprise from her.

Kirill stared at her, his wide eyes dark and unreadable. For a moment it scared the hell out of her, but then she saw him blink a couple of times, saw a look of recognition cross his face.

The bruising grip relaxed, though he didn’t let go of her wrist.

“Sorry,” she told him quietly. “I didn’t mean to wake you, I was just… I came to check on you, you had some hair…” She stumbled over her own explanation, hoping to hell he couldn’t see the heat in her face in the dim lighting. “How do you feel?”

He released her wrist. “We are in the RV?” he sighed, “I do not remember…” He rubbed at his forehead with the heel of his hand, closing his eyes.

She wondered if she ought to touch him, reassure him somehow, but she wasn’t sure if he’d appreciate it. “David and Bourne brought you in here. You had another seizure as we were leaving. That was coming up to six hours ago.”

His eyes opened slowly. “Another?” He shook his head. “I do not remember them.”

“That’s maybe a good thing,” she told him. “I didn’t mean to wake you, man, I’m sorry.”

He nodded, clearly unconcerned. “Is there water?” he asked her, sitting up a little.

“No. I could go get you some, or there’s some Coke,” she picked up the bottle from the bed and showed him.

“Anything.” He moistened those wonderful lips with his tongue. “My mouth is dry.”

She unscrewed the top and handed him the bottle, watched him take a couple of long swallows before handing it back.

“Keep it,” she told him, screwing the cap back on for him. “I can get myself another.”

He nodded, settled back against the pillows a little. The guy looked worn out, his eyes were heavy, the skin dark beneath them.

“You need to sleep,” she told him.

“Feels like I sleep all the time.”

“David says you need the rest.”

“He is your friend?”

It was more of a statement than a question, but she nodded. “Yeah, he’s a good friend.”

“Then why did you let him do this?”

She knew exactly what he was talking about. “Let him?” she laughed. “You don’t know him well enough yet. Once he gets an idea, once he feels he has to do something, that’s it. There’s no talking him out of it, no argument that works on him if he feels it’s the right thing to do. Don’t think I didn’t fucking try!”

To her surprise that earned her the brief flicker of a smile. “Did Bourne try?”

“Hard as he could, didn’t matter a damn.” She opened the pack of sandwiches, keeping one for herself and offering the other to the Russian.

“I am not…”

“…Hungry, yeah I know, but you need to eat it. Eat it for David’s benefit if not for your own. Besides, he makes really good sandwiches. He was giving out sandwiches the night he found you, did you know that?”

“Sandwiches?” he frowned as he almost absently took it from her.

“Yeah, and blankets to the homeless. That’s kinda how I met him too.”

“I thought you were policewoman.”

“I am… _was_ …” she corrected, taking a bite out of her own sandwich and tapping at the Russian’s hand that held his own. He glanced at it, and then her, before taking a bite. He chewed slowly, eyes not leaving hers.

“The Prof made this decision that he wanted to help the homeless. Most guys in his position would have written a cheque out to a charity and that would have been it, but not David. He had to physically do something, so he went out on the streets and started handing out money to buy food with. Damn fool got himself mugged. He really had the shit kicked out of him. He was lucky he didn’t get himself killed. I was the one who found him. I tried to talk him into just writing out that cheque, but he didn’t want to know, the stubborn bastard. So instead of money he started handing out food and blankets. That’s what he’d been doing the night he found you.”

“I should not have let him help me.”

“From what he’s told me you didn’t have a whole lot of choice in the matter. And trust me you’ve got even less now. Whether you think you deserve the Prof’s help or not, you’re stuck with it.”

“Why are _you_ here?” he asked her.

“Because I’m an idiot, and because David’s my friend and while he’s off taking care of everyone else someone needs to keep an eye out for him. So eat!” she grinned.

His smile flickered again and she wondered what a real one would look like. He obediently took another bite of the sandwich though he didn’t look like he was tasting it.

“Bourne… He said you worked for the FSB, that’s like the KGB, right?”

He nodded.

“So you were like a _spy_?”

“Operative, not a spy.”

“So if an operative isn’t a spy what does an operative do?” Bourne had said he was an assassin. Kirill didn’t look like much of an assassin to Diane.

“What you Americans call Black Ops.”

“Is that what Bourne did for the CIA, Black Ops?”

“ _Da_.”

She shook her head. “Neither of you fits my mental picture of what Black Ops types should look like, y’know. I kinda imagined these big, muscular Navy SEAL types.”

“There is word for those types,” he told her before finishing off the sandwich.

“What,” she frowned, “a Russian word?”

“ _Niet_ American; they call them _pussies_ , huh?”

Diane laughed. “Hey, no fair! I met a SEAL once! He was one big scary fucker!”

“Is not how they look.”

“Well I’ll give you that cuz Bourne… no way he looks scary.”

“He is good Bourne, very good, he…” Whatever else he was going to say was lost in a yawn.

“Hey, you should be sleeping,” Diane told him. “The Prof’s orders; sleep, rest, eat, drink.”

“Not tired.”

“Yeah right!” She wondered if he just wanted the conversation. “How about you eat some more then, and yeah, I know you’re not hungry but…”

“David’s orders?”

She nodded, opening the fruit salad. “You gonna share this with me?”

He didn’t look too keen and Diane wondered if maybe she’d pushed him enough, but what the hell, he looked like he needed some meat on his bones, and she was nothing if not persistent.

“C’mon man, just a little! You owe me.”

He frowned. “Owe you?”

“Calling the Navy SEALS pussies. You owe me big time! We’re proud of our navy boys!”

She grinned when he rolled his eyes.

“I eat a little.”

She speared a hunk of melon on the plastic fork and offered it to him, pleased when he wrapped his mouth around it obediently.

~~~~~~~~~~~

 _  
**CIA headquarters, Langley, Virginia.**   
_

Pamela Landy took a drink from her first office coffee of the day, grimacing slightly at the fact that she’d let it go cold. She had paperwork this morning, mundane for the most part, nothing that could be classed as urgent. Her mind was elsewhere, fixed and frustrated by Teddy Lawrence’s task force: the frantic, endless rushing around by it’s leader and the complete lack of action from the task force itself.

Lawrence was depending on Bourne, there was no back-up procedure and no real investigation going on. The man hadn’t even sent a team to New York. It irked and frustrated her, and she couldn’t help wondering what kind of line Lawrence was feeding Martin Marshall to get away with this… Or maybe she was just out of the loop and wasn’t being made aware of all the facts. That was a thought that irked her too.

There was something else that bothered her. There was Bourne himself. She kept replaying his night time visit over and over in her mind, especially those last moments when she’d built up enough courage to risk asking him a question…

 _“Why didn’t you kill him in Moscow when you had the opportunity?”_

 _He hadn’t made eye contact with her and she remembered his frown, his hesitation before answering her._

 _“I’d stopped him. I knew he wouldn’t keep coming after that.”_

 _“But he killed Marie Kreutz.”_

 _He’d hesitated again before meeting her eyes. “He was the weapon. Someone else, someone like you, was the one with their finger on the trigger.”_

The more she thought about it the more certain she was that something hadn’t been quite right. Bourne hadn’t finished Trediakovsky off at the time, a time when the death of Marie Kreutz must have been a fresh and painful memory. Was the promise of a new start, a clean slate, more important to him, now, than avenging the death of the woman he loved had been to him then?

There had to be more to it than that, had to be.

Her thoughts were interrupted by a knock on her open office door, and a mousey looking woman she hadn’t seen before popped her head around.

“Miss Landy, ma’am, I-I’m sorry to interrupt you but, your secretary’s not there, I…”

The woman was clearly nervous.

“Come on in,” she urged. “Do you have something for me?” She indicated the file the woman was carrying.

“Yes, ma’am, I do, at least I think so.” She made her way over to the desk. “I’m from the Computer Intrusions Section, my department monitors any attempts to access Government computer systems, hacking, that kind of thing,” she explained. “I went to Mr Lawrence with this but he was busy and not to be disturbed, so I wondered…”

“What do you have?” Pam asked her.

She handed over the slim file. “We were alerted when someone accessed the NCIC computer system by a back door. They used a CIA code to get in, which normally would have been fine, but use of this particular code had been flagged for immediate attention. I looked up the code ma’am, it’s not been used in years but the security clearance is level 5 and above so I couldn’t get any more than a name.

“What name?”

“Treadstone. The access code is exclusive to a project Treadstone. I couldn’t access any information on Treadstone itself but I was able to discover that the last people who _were_ able to access it were Director Marshall, Mr Lawrence, and yourself.”

“You say the code was flagged, but would it work?”

“Oh, yes, ma’am, it worked. Whoever used it had access to the NCIC database. I can prevent that if…”

“No, no, that’s fine.” Pam checked the file, saw that the hack was only a day old. “Would it be possible for us to trace where, exactly, the code was used and what was accessed?”

The woman, Jean Bell according to her name tag, nodded. “Oh yes. I can already tell you that the code was used in New York. If I go back to my terminal, I can let you know exactly what information was accessed in just a couple of minutes.”

“Could you do that from here?” Pam asked her, indicating her own computer.

The woman nodded. “Yes of course.”

“This is good work, Jean,” Pamela told her with a smile, “Excellent work.”

Perhaps, she reflected, her feelings of unease about Bourne were unfounded after all.

~~~~~~~~~~


	19. The Good Samaritan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Follow on from 'The Bourne Supremacy'

**Chapter 19**

David woke up confused. His first thought was that he wasn’t in his bed, that he’d fallen asleep in the armchair, a not uncommon event. It took him a moment to realise that he wasn’t there either, that he was moving, and then he remembered he was in the RV.

He rubbed his hands slowly over his face as he stretched in the chair. It was a surprisingly comfortable chair he had to admit, or perhaps he’d just been too exhausted last night not to sleep soundly.

He felt rather grubby. He needed to wash up, and shave, he realised as his hands ran over far too much stubble. He desperately needed a shave.

He seemed to be alone for the moment apart from Bourne who was driving. He looked out of the window at the daylight as they crossed a bridge over a wide river. There was a blessed lack of snow, though the rain was coming down fairly heavily. When he looked out the front windscreen he saw they were approaching a city.

“Where are we?” he asked Bourne.

“Kentucky,” Bourne supplied, “That’s Louisville up ahead.”

David had heard of Louisville. He was fairly certain Mohammed Ali came from Louisville, just wasn’t sure if it was Louisville, Kentucky. “Are we stopping here?”

“For a few hours,” Bourne told him. “We’re better off travelling at night as much as we can. We’ll stop somewhere, stretch our legs, then see if we can find an RV park where we can spend the rest of the day, get cleaned up.”

“How long have we been on the road?” David asked.

“About thirteen hours.” Bourne rubbed absently at the bridge of his nose, frowning slightly.

“Tired?” David asked him.

“It’s just a headache. I’ll be fine once I’ve had some sleep.”

“Would you like me to fetch you a couple of Tylenol and some water.”

“No… Thanks,” he added. “I’ve had worse.”

“If you’re sure,” David answered. “I ought to go check on Kirill.”

“Diane looked in on him, but that was a while ago.”

There was no sign of Diane, no doubt she was using the bathroom.

“I need to stretch my legs anyway,” David told Bourne. The chair he had slept in might well have been comfortable but he was as stiff as a board once he started to get up… And his gut was rather sore too, where Kirill had struck him.

He needed the bathroom too so he hoped Diane wouldn’t take too long. This was going to take a little getting used to, he realised, living in a confined space with three other people. He decided to check on Kirill whilst he waited for her, and made his way to the rear sleeping compartment.

“At least we’ve left the snow behind,” he called out to Bourne as he made his way to the rear of the RV. “I can’t say I’m unhappy about that.”

He eased the door to the sleeping compartment open and stepped inside, eyes widening at the sight that greeted him.

The Russian was still sleeping, lying on his side, facing the door. The bedding and throw were pulled up around him and held in place by Diane’s arm, wrapped protectively around Kirill’s shoulders as she spooned behind him.

She was stirring, eyes flickering open. David backed quietly out of the room, and went to take advantage of the mercifully empty bathroom.

~~~~~~~~~~

 **  
_CIA headquarters, Langley, Virginia._   
**

Teddy Lawrence sat back in his office chair, suit jacket gone, tie loosened, and regarded the reports on his desk with some frustration as the voice on the other end of the telephone chirped happily in his ear.

“Daddy’s just told me that Senator Leonard has confirmed.”

“For the Christmas Eve party?”

“Uh-huh. Apparently he’s eager to meet you. Daddy has been bending his ear of course, but he says the Senator told him that you fit the profile; just the kind of young man the Republican leadership needs to secure a bright future. This could be it Teddy, first foot firmly on the ladder. Are you excited?”

He smiled. “You bet! A little nervous too, I guess, but this is what I want… What we both want, right Stephanie?”

“Side by side,” she told him, her voice a breathy purr. Nothing got Steph off more than a whiff of power, “You and I, all the way to the Whitehouse.”

“Getting a little ahead of ourselves, baby,” he warned her.

“I have confidence in you,” she assured him. “I know what you’re capable of and so does Daddy. Christmas Eve is just the start. So, what about tonight,” she asked him. “I was thinking dinner and drinks with…”

Teddy’s cell phone began to ring and he picked it up to check the caller ID, sitting up straight when he saw who it was.

“Have to go baby, incoming call I can’t miss,” he told her briskly.

“Okay, let me know about tonight.”

He hung up on her as he snapped open his cell. “Colonel Uspensky.”

“Teddy, how are you my boy?”

“I’m well sir, and you?”

“Excellent, thank you. I would be even better if you had some news to share with me. Have you heard from your man Bourne?”

“Not yet sir. Bourne’s way of working…”

“That’s disappointing news,” Uspensky cut him off. “I had expected better than this.”

“I assure you, Sir…” Teddy tried.

There was an audible sigh on the other end of the phone. “Like you, Teddy, I have other people whom I must answer to, people at the highest level, and they expect results from me, results from you. Our two countries have an agreement on this matter; a bargain struck between us that you seem incapable of fulfilling…”

“Sir,” Teddy fought to put a lid on his rising feeling of panic. “I can only ask you for patience. I give you my word that we have this matter well in hand.”

“I have _your_ word?”

Teddy almost crossed his fingers. “Yes, sir, you do.”

There was another sigh. “Very well. I will contact you again in a day or two. Hopefully you will have _something_ for me by then.”

“Rest assured we will, sir.” Even if he had to pluck something out of thin air to keep this Russian bastard off his back he’d come up with something.”

“That’s good to hear. My thanks for your time Teddy.”

“Good day, sir.”

He was relieved when Uspensky hung up.

The relief barely lasted a couple of seconds, interrupted by someone rapping on his door and just walking in before he could give his permission.

Pamela Landy. She was all he needed.

“Feel free to just barge in why don’t you?” The bitch had got the wind back in her sales since her little encounter with Jason Bourne. Suddenly she had Martin Marshal listening to her again as though she had a damn clue.

She stood there like some prim schoolteacher, a slim file held in her hands. Her disapproval of him was more than evident in those too-sharp eyes of hers.

“We have a development. I thought you needed to hear,” she told him.

“Let me guess,” he baited her. “Another late night visit from Bourne. Did he bring flowers this time or..?”

“He accessed the NCIC computer in New York. He did it using the Treadstone code to get in the back door.”

Landy was looking for some kind of response from him, here, and he wasn’t sure what exactly she expected him to say.

“And..?” He’d love to wipe that smug, superior _‘I have field experience’_ expression off her face.

She had the nerve to sigh.

“Bourne knows his way around computers. He could have hacked in anonymously without any difficulty, if he’d wanted to. Instead he used the Treadstone code knowing we’d pick up on it. He was letting us know it was him. He’s given us a place to start.”

“I think it was a foregone conclusion that his first stop would be New York,” Teddy pointed out.

“True, but I had Jean Bell, the woman who spotted this from the Computer Intrusions Section, hack the NCIC computer records so that we could see exactly what Bourne was looking at.”

“ _You_ had her hack the records?” he fumed. It was time to bring this bitch down a peg or two, he decided. “Need I remind you that _I’m_ the one leading this team, not you. You’re assisting me Pam. I thought Marty made that clear right at the beginning?”

She raised a perfectly plucked eyebrow. “I _am_ assisting you. In fact I’m bailing your ass out on this one. You see the woman who found all this out, she came to see _you_ first. Not only did you not bother seeing her, you didn’t even have her leave the file with your secretary so you could look it over when you were…” she shook her head letting out another of those damn sighs of hers, “less _busy_. That’s basic procedure mister, and you’re not following it!”

Teddy reigned in his temper, but barely.

“Okay, you got me.” He plastered on the best grin he could manage. “So, what do we know?”

She handed him the file. “He was looking at the personnel file of a beat cop named Diane Jolly.”

“How do we know she’s connected to Trediakovsky?”

“We don’t.”

“So, for all we know, he could be looking up an old girlfriend.”

“That’s not how Bourne works, he’s…”

“Superman,” he rolled his eyes. “I keep forgetting.”

She ignored the jibe. “We need a team in place in New York to follow the trail Bourne’s leaving for us.”

“I don’t know if a team’s called for at this stage…” The last thing he wanted was to be fucking around in New York, chasing his ass while he waited for Bourne to off the Russian.

“Of _course_ we need a team…”

“A team?”

 _Fuck_! He was so wound up he hadn’t noticed Marty Marshall walk into his office, and of course the man hadn’t knocked, never did.

“New York, sir,” he told him quickly, before Landy could get a word in. “Bourne has emerged there as we thought he would. He purposely used a Treadstone back door to hack the NCIC computer there.” He held out the file Landy had given him.

“I have it,” Marshall told him. “Pam’s PA dropped it in a couple of minutes ago, that’s why I’m here. Plus I have a couple of significant contributions of my own. The first came with the morning paper, tucked away on page three. The Russians have given a brief press release to the effect that Yuri Gretkov died of a heart attack whilst awaiting trial in Lefortovo prison.”

Landy raised a sceptical eyebrow. “Heart attack?”

“It _is_ possible. The Russian authorities have to be more careful these days. Though I think we can be fairly certain that if it was a heart attack, it was likely to be chemically induced.”

“The very least he deserved!”

Marshall nodded. “You’ll get no arguments from me on that score, Pam, I assure you. More interestingly, I was advised that Nikolai Uspensky flew into Washington last night and is currently at the Russian Embassy.”

“He’s _here_?” Teddy fought to hide his shock at the news. _Why the hell hadn’t Uspensky told him_ , he wondered?

Landy was staring at him, a puzzled look on her face.

Marshall nodded. “It’s an interesting development. Uspensky was, after all, Trediakovsky’s mentor.” The Director frowned. “It might be worthwhile approaching your contact, Teddy, see if he can shed a little more light on the visit.”

“What have the Russian’s said?” Landy asked.

Teddy didn’t like the way she kept looking at him. He fought to school his features, mask the surge of panic he was feeling.

“They’re calling it an informal, seasonal visit. Uspensky will be guest of honor at a number of festive events, and you can guarantee they won’t all be at the embassy. Uspensky is well liked and popular in the social circles he moves in, both at home and internationally,” Marshall told them. “I met him, nothing more than a brief shake of the hands, a few years ago at a Whitehouse dinner. Putin was scheduled to be guest of honor but was forced to cancel. Uspensky came in his stead, made the after dinner speech. He was impressive. The man comes across as witty, intelligent, and charming. Not what you’d expect at all, given his reputation.

“The man speaks at least five languages fluently,” he went on. “He’s extremely well educated, and according to reliable sources he’s a very wealthy man with a personal fortune swelled by the sale of his shares in Pecos oil.”

Landy looked surprised. “Gretkov’s company.”

“Rumour has it the shares were a gift from his old friend Gretkov. Gretkov’s personal bodyguards were all FSB, as of course was Trediakovsky.”

“Uspensky’s protégé.”

Marshall gave her a nod and then turned his attention back to Teddy. “Take your team to New York, follow up on this police officer and let’s see what transpires. I want this kept low key for now, we don’t want to compromise Bourne, but we need to be on top of this, ready to act should the need arise. Teddy I want you to liaise closely with Pam on this…”

“Sir, I don’t think…”

“Pam has clocked up the field hours, so let her guide you. She’s also familiar with and to Bourne. I shouldn’t have to remind either of you that the clock is ticking on this one. Keep me fully appraised of the team’s progress.”

Marshall left and Teddy rounded on Pamela Landy just as soon as the door closed.

“I’ll bet you’re just loving this, aren’t you?”

She stared at him, not saying anything for a moment. Teddy felt as though she could almost look inside of him and it unnerved him.

“The answer to that,” she said, finally breaking the silence, “is an emphatic _no_ , but I’m stuck with you. So let’s get this team together and get on with it shall we?”

~~~~~~~~~~~

“Professor, that wasn’t how it looked,” Diane told him earnestly, “back there in the RV.”

They had parked up temporarily in a Louisville mall. David and Diane had volunteered to collect some breakfast and try to get directions to a camping ground where they could get some much needed rest before going back on the road later that night.

Since he’d found her in bed with Kirill, Diane had been as flustered as David had ever seen her, clearly wanting to talk about it, but not, it seemed, until the two of them were alone.

“How do you think it looked?” David asked her, resisting the temptation to smile. He’d managed to distract and interrupt her for the last fifteen minutes, whilst they obtained directions and leaflets for various campsites in the area.

“There wasn’t anything going on, y’know.”

He gave a noncommittal nod. “I see.”

“Honestly Prof. I-I went in to check on him when Bourne asked me to. We just talked for a while and I got him to eat something.” She frowned, and a blush began to stain her cheeks. “I guess I must have dropped off. I was pretty tired after my driving shift. I don’t remember getting under the covers so maybe he did it, Kirill. You could ask him.”

“You did point out to me that you found Kirill attractive, something about him having to beat them off with sticks, if I remember rightly,” David teased. “The next thing I find is you in bed with the man…”

“Aw, no! Prof, I swear…”

Try as he might David couldn’t hold back his smile any longer, nor the laughter that followed it.

“You’re winding me up!” Diane glared at him. “I’m going crazy here worrying about you thinking I’m some kind of tramp and you _knew_ nothing had happened!”

“I’m sorry for teasing,” he apologised. “To tell you the truth, the thought that you’d been doing anything other than what you just told me never even occurred to me. I’m far more surprised that the two of you chatted. I thought you disliked Kirill.”

“Disliked?” She shook her head. “No, I mean I was kind of pissed with him, but I guess none of this is really his fault.”

“No it isn’t. I think there’s still a very large part of Kirill that wishes I’d just left him in that alley.”

“He would have died.”

David nodded. “He’s aware of that.”

Diane frowned. “Things have been pretty bad for him, huh?”

“I suspect much more than we know.” David sighed. “You chatted though, the two of you?”

  
“Well I did most of the talking,” she admitted, “but he… He was okay, different to how I expected.”

“You actually did quite a good thing,” David told her.

“Getting him to eat? It wasn’t easy.”

“I didn’t actually mean that, but yes, that was excellent. So was talking to him. He needs that too and it’s something that you can do to help him.”

“Just talk?”

“I don’t think he’s had anyone to talk to in a very long time. When I speak with him it’s almost entirely wrapped up with his health issues. I think it would help him to talk to someone else. It certainly wouldn’t harm.”

Diane shrugged. “Yeah, I could do that. He’s like Bourne, y’know. You don’t hear that guy speak unless he has to. Maybe it’s some kind of qualification you need to be a black-ops type, huh?”

She grabbed his arm suddenly and started steering him towards a hairdressing shop. “We need to go in there.”

“What on earth for?”

“A decent pair of scissors, for one. Your pal Kirill needs a haircut, and a shave. They should have everything I need to clean him up in there. Then we need to get some food. Don’t know about you man, but I could eat a horse.”

David looked around at the mass of fast food franchises all around them.

“I’m fairly sure there must be a horse burger restaurant here somewhere. They seem to sell pretty much everything else. Perhaps Colonel Sanders does them…”

Diane just rolled her eyes.

~~~~~~~~~~


End file.
